Françoise Dolto (November 6, 1908 – August 25, 1988) was a French pediatrician and psychoanalyst.
Born as Françoise Marette, she was the daughter of an affluent far-right royalist family of traditional Catholics in Paris. Her Alsatian mother, Suzanne Demmler, was the daughter of an engineer, and Henri Marette, her father, was also a Polytechnic engineer who became an industrialist. She was the fourth child of a family of seven. Her brother Jacques Marette (1922-1984), was French Postmaster (minister of Posts and Telecommunications) from 1962 to 1967.
An Irish nurse frequently took care of her when she was a baby; her parents then had to learn to speak English to get her to smile. Her parents fired the nurse when she was 8 months old. Dolto's very traditional upbringing, which Élisabeth Roudinesco described as "very Catholic, extreme right-wing", reflected the values of Charles Maurras.
Her personal tutor was trained in the methods of Friedrich Fröbel. When she was eight her un...
