ZAVITZIANOS, GEORGES (1909-1995)

Greek physician and psychoanalyst Georges Zavitzianos was born in Corfu, Greece, in 1909 and died in North Bethesda, Maryland on December 13, 1995.

Escaping from Turks who burned the village of Zavitza in 1700, the Zavitzianos family settled in the Ionian island of Corfu, where they produced a succession of scientists, writers, and artists.

After secondary school in Greece, Zavitzianos studied medicine at Montpellier in France. Returning to his native country in 1934, he worked as a neuropsychiatrist with a psychoanalytic orientation; he had been briefly psycho-analyzed by the early French analyst, Edouard Pichon.

During the late 1940s Zavitzianos participated in the creation of the first Greek psychoanalytic group, founded with the help and guidance of Marie Bonaparte; in 1950 he was elected a member of the Societé psychanalytique de Paris. However, soon thereafter he decided to emigrate to North America. He spent some time in Montreal and eventually settled in the United States. He took part in founding several psychoanalytic societies and institutes, and taught from 1950 to 1982. Seduced by her beautiful soprano voice, he married Sylvia Filyndras. He also underwent analysis with Leo Stone.

Zavitzianos's principal works concern female perversions (1982); problems of transvestism (1977); and what he called "homeovestism" (1972)—sexual enjoyment in wearing the clothes of one's own sex. He also wrote about problems of psychoanalytic technique (1967) and the patient-therapist relationship. Before he died, in a letter to Anna Potamianou, written on December 12, 1995, he expressed what he called his only regret—the fact that he had not been able to share his great analytic experience with his Greek colleagues.

Anna Potamianou

See also: Canada; Greece.

Bibliography

Tzavaras, Athanase. (1996). Georges A. Zavitzianos: Corfu, 1909-Maryland/E.U, 1995. Cahiers de psychiatrie, 53,10-13.

Zavitzianos, Georges. (1967). Problems of technique in the analysis of a juvenile delinquent: therapeutic alliance and transference neurosis. International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, 48, 439-447.

——. (1972). Homeovestism: perverse form of behavior involving wearing clothes of the same sex. International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, 53, 471-477.

——. (1977). The object in fetishism, homeovestism and transvestism.International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, 58, 487-495.

——. (1982). The perversion of fetishism in women. Psychoanalytic Quarterly. 51, 405-425.