Published: Saturday, Nov. 07, 2009 / Updated: Saturday, Nov. 07, 2009 12:39 PM
Bruni-Sarkozy tells of 8 years in psychoanalysis
PARIS --
During her years as a top model, French first lady Carla Bruni-Sarkozy gave psychoanalysis nary a thought.
But after her father died, the then-28-year-old model dove into therapy "body and soul," and has since spent many years in analysis, she told the makers of a French documentary broadcast Saturday.
The documentary "La premiere seance" ("The First Session") features people talking about the reasons that pushed them to go into analysis and their experiences on the psychiatrist's couch.
Other celebrities featured on the program included Chanel designer Karl Lagerfeld and filmmaker Claude Chabrol.
"I didn't know anything about psychoanalysis and didn't think I needed it. I lived in total action, in youth, completely outside psychoanalysis until the age of 28," Bruni-Sarkozy told documentary director Gerard Miller - himself a psychoanalyst.
"And then I had a sort of fracture when my father died and then I went ... into psychoanalysis body and soul, if I dare say,"
It took her two false starts - with analysts Bruni-Sarkozy described as "glum" - before she hit on the right one.
"The first consultation with that analyst was incandescent," she said.
"I think it was that human contact that, in my heart at least, made me commit to psychoanalysis and invest in it."
Bruni-Sarkozy, 41, said she didn't ever like lying down on the analyst's couch but acknowledged, "I stayed lying down for eight years."
During the program, Lagerfeld described what an analyst's office should look like - Spartan - and Chabrol defended the often exorbitant price of sessions.
"It's part of the treatment," the director said with a laugh. "It's really smart in terms of our understanding of human nature, our taste for showing off, our taste for all things expensive."
McClatchy Interactive is pleased to be able to offer its users the opportunity to make comments and hold conversations online. However, the interactive nature of the internet makes it impracticable for our staff to monitor each and every posting.
Since MIReference.com does not control user submitted statements, we cannot promise that readers will not occasionally find offensive or inaccurate comments posted on our website. In addition, we remind anyone interested in making an online comment that responsibility for statements posted lies with the person submitting the comment, not McClatchy Interactive.
If you find a comment offensive, clicking on exclamation icon will flag the comment for review by the administrators, we are counting on the good judgment of all our readers to help us.