Obituary Georges Lantéri-Laura (1930-2004).

The work of Georges Lantéri-Laura reflects well the changes that have affected French psychiatry during the second half of the twentieth century. Their beginning can be traced back to the First World Congress of Psychiatry (Paris, 1950) organized by Henri Ey (1900-77) and to the publication of the first edition of the Traité de psychiatrie clinique et thérapeutique, a section of La Encyclopédia médico-surgicale. Trained both in philosophy and psychiatry, Lantéri-Laura was able to grasp the complex interplay of ideologies that have given rise to current French psychiatry.