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n.

1. The act of confronting or the state of being confronted, especially a meeting face to face.
2. 1. A conflict involving armed forces: a nuclear confrontation.
   2. Discord or a clash of opinions and ideas: an age of ideological confrontation.
3. A focused comparison: an essay that brought elements of biography, autobiography, and general European history into powerful, meaningful confrontation.

confrontational con'fron·ta'tion·al adj.
confrontationist con'fron·ta'tion·ist n.

noun

1. A face-to-face, usually hostile meeting: encounter, face-off. See meet.
2. A state of open, prolonged fighting: belligerency, conflict, hostility (used in plural), strife, struggle, war, warfare. See conflict/cooperation.
3. A state of disagreement and disharmony: clash, conflict, contention, difference, difficulty, disaccord, discord, discordance, dissension, dissent, dissentience, dissidence, dissonance, faction, friction, inharmony, schism, strife, variance, war, warfare. See conflict/cooperation.

n

Definition: conflict
Antonyms: calm, peace

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A face-to-face discussion among two or more people in conflict, for example between team mates or between an athlete and coach. Confrontations, can be negative, exacerbating conflicts, especially if participants are angry and express that anger in hurtful accusations. However, if conducted thoughtfully, with consideration for the feelings and situation of other people, confrontations can be useful in helping to identify and solve problems.

The seminar known as Confrontation, designed to foster discussion and overcome intellectual isolation engendered by institutional divisions in French psychoanalysis, was created by René Major and Dominique Geahchan in 1973. It represented an effort to develop a non-sectarian forum for discussion and debate among analysts and to bring psychoanalysis into contact with related disciplines.

At the time, four psychoanalytic institutions were operating in France. The Société Psychanalytique de Paris (SPP) and training institute was the first to be founded and the progenitor of the others; there was also the Association Psychanalytique de France (APF). Members of that organization helped Jacques Lacan to establish theÉcole Freudienne de Paris in 1964 while a schism in that group had led five years later to the founding of what was known as the Quatrième Groupe. The various splits had precipitated considerable resentment amongst French analysts, especially after the International Psychoanalytic Association (IPA) pointedly refused to recognize Lacan or Fran-çoise Dolto as training analysts. The resulting climate of divisiveness favored dogmatism.

Major and Geahchan belonged to the Paris society; the former was director of the training institute. Attendees at the first seminar brought Wladimir Granoff, Serge Leclaire, and François Perrier before institute members, including Nicolas Abraham, Denise Braunschweig, Alain de Mijolla, Jacques Mynard, Michel Neyraut, Catherine Parat, Maria Torok, Serge Viderman; analysts from the three other groups also attended. Subsequent meetings took place at the Maison de la Chimie and at the Maison des Polytechniciens.

Thus there developed an extensive exchange of ideas, after years of relative isolation, among analysts such as Piera Aulagnier, Jean Clavreul, Jean Laplanche, Maud and Octave Mannoni, Michèle Montrelay, Jean-Bertrand Pontalis, Elisabeth Roudinesco, François Roustang, Moustapha Safouan, Conrad Stein, and Nathalie Zaltzman. Dialogue also took the form of meetings with philosophers, mathematicians, historians, and linguists—among them Jean Baudrillard, Catherine Clément, Jacques Derrida, Serge Doubrovsky, Luce Irigaray, Sarah Kofman, Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe, Jean Claude Milner, Jean-Luc Nancy, and Jean Petitot.

By 1975 these seminars became a site of intellectual exchange that considered psychoanalysis in relation to literature, politics, law, and religions through investigations of little-studied themes. Well-known analysts attended these meetings, regardless of their institutional affiliation, in an atmosphere of openness that encouraged debate on the merits of the various idioms that were then developing what might be more broadly construed as the language of psychoanalysis. The seminars also led to various publications under the imprints ofÉditions Confrontation andÉditions Aubier Montaigne.

Memorable seminars included one that, for the first time in France, brought to light the situation of psychoanalysis in Argentina and Brazil during a period of dictatorship and human rights abuse. Another concerned The Post Card, re-igniting the dispute initiated by Lacan's "Seminar on 'The Purloined Letter'" and Derrida's interpretation of it. An Anglo-French meeting debated the relationship of psychoanalysis and deconstructionism, analytic philosophy, and feminism; it brought together Hélène Cixous, Jacques Derrida, Antoinette Fouque, Serge Leclaire, and Juliet Mitchell. Another seminar, in Italy with Armando Bauleo, concerned politics and society.

Neither an institute nor training program vis-à-vis clinical practice, the Confrontation seminars realized in embryonic form Freud's hope, expressed in The Question of Lay Analysis, for new post-graduate institutions that would enable analysts to acquire a broader base of knowledge for understanding science and culture. The seminars ended in May 1983, with the death of Dominique Geahchan.

In a larger context, Confrontation was a first step toward a broader forum for analytic thought outside of conventional institutes. At the Collège International de Philosophie, René Major directed a colloquium on "Lacan and the Philosophers" in 1990. In 1997, after a similar meeting held upon publication of Helena Besserman Vianna's book on Brazil, Major called for an international conference. This became the first Estates General of Psychoanalysis, held at the Sorbonne in the year 2000, with representative from thirty-three countries and the ultimate aim of creating a European-based institute of advanced studies in psychoanalysis.

Bibliography

Major, René. (1991). Lacan avec Derrida. Paris:Éditions Mentha.

Besserman Vianna, Helena. (1995). N'en parlezà personne.La psychanalyse face à la dictature et à la torture. Paris:Éditions l'Harmattan.

Collège International de Philosophie. (1991). Lacan avec les philosophes. Paris: Editions Albin Michel.

—CHANTAL TALAGRAND

This entry contains information applicable to United States law only.

A fundamental right of a defendant in a criminal action to come face to face with an adverse witness in the court's presence so the defendant has a fair chance to object to the testimony of the witness and the opportunity to cross-examine the witness.

The Bill of Rights of the U.S. Constitution (the first ten amendments) specifies certain rights inherent to all individuals, in order to protect them from the arbitrary use of government power. Among these is the right to confront one's accusers in a criminal case, which derives from the Sixth Amendment: "In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right … to be confronted with the witnesses against him." The Confrontation Clause, as this part of the Sixth Amendment is generally known, was understood traditionally to mean that criminal defendants had the right to be put in the presence of their accusers in open court, face-to-face, in front of the jury. This right was intended to give defendants the opportunity to cross-examine witnesses against them, as well as to provide the jury with an opportunity to observe the demeanor of and make inferences regarding the reliability of those witnesses. The substantive meaning of this right has been the subject of great debate, especially regarding the trying of child abuse cases involving child witnesses. Does the Confrontation Clause provide the right to confront witnesses in open court, or does it simply convey a right to cross-examine witnesses?

Like most of the protections given criminal defendants in the Constitution, the right of confronting one's accusers has its origins in English common law and in the experiences of the colonies before the Revolution. Until the sixteenth century, the right of confronting one's accusers was nearly absent from the Anglo-American legal tradition. Then, with the introduction of the right to trial by an impartial jury and the firm establishment of the presumption of innocence, the right of confrontation came to be seen as an integral part of a proper defense of the rights of the accused. In the American colonies, the Salem witch trials in particular created an impetus for establishing the right of the accused to a face-to-face confrontation with the accusers — who in these cases were mostly children anonymously accusing their elders. Horrified by the widespread use of coerced and anonymous accusations in these trials, and by the executions that resulted, the Massachusetts Legislature established the right to confront one's accusers. Soon after, the special Salem court for witch trials was disbanded by the colonial governor; few accusers were willing to face their targets in open court.

The experience of the Salem witch trials made a great impression on the other colonies. By the end of the sixteenth century, most of the colonies had established in their constitution a right of confrontation similar to that recognized in Massachusetts. Thus, at the time of the writing of the Constitution, the right was so firmly entrenched that its inclusion in the Bill of Rights elicited no debate.

The Confrontation Clause gives criminal defendants two specific rights: the right to be present during all critical stages of trial, and the right to confront adverse witnesses. Each of these rights has certain limitations.

The right to be present during critical stages of trial allows defendants to participate actively in their defense by listening to the evidence against them and consulting with their attorneys. However, unruly, defiant, disrespectful, disorderly, and abusive defendants can be removed from the courtroom if the judge feels it is necessary to maintain the decorum and respect of a judicial proceeding. If a defendant persists in disorderly conduct, yet demands to remain in the courtroom, the Sixth Amendment allows a trial court to have that defendant bound and gagged so that his or her presence does not disrupt the proceedings (Tyars v. Finner, 709 F.2d 1274 [9th Cir. 1983]).

The second prong of the Confrontation Clause guarantees defendants the right to face adverse witnesses in person and subject them to cross-examination. Through cross-examination, defendants are allowed to test the reliability and credibility of witnesses by probing their recollection and exposing any underlying prejudices, biases, or motives that may cause the witness to distort the truth or to lie. However, the right of cross-examination also has limits. Courts may restrict defendants from delving into certain areas on cross-examination. For example, defendants may be denied the right to ask questions that are irrelevant, collateral, confusing, repetitive, or prejudicial. Also, defendants may be prevented from pursuing a line of questioning solely for the purpose of harassment.

In exceptional circumstances defendants may be denied the right to confront their accusers face to face. In Maryland v. Craig, 497 U.S. 836, 110 S. Ct. 3157, 111 L. Ed. 2d 666 (1990), the Supreme Court upheld a statute that permitted a small child to testify by a one-way closed circuit television from a remote location outside the courtroom. In such situations, the Court ruled, the trial court must make a specific finding that keeping the witness out of the presence of the defendant is necessary to protect the witness from traumatic injury. The Craig decision has been the subject of some debate. Victims' rights advocates and some prosecutors support the additional protection of witnesses, but defense attorneys have argued that shielding children from confrontation is risky given that the reliability of children's testimony is often in dispute.

Even when a witness is permitted to testify outside the presence of the accused, defendants maintain the right of cross-examination.

See: criminal procedure.

IN BRIEF: A meeting of people with opposite views.

Kyle tried to avoid a confrontation with Sam.

Dansk (Danish)
n. - konfrontation

Nederlands (Dutch)
confrontatie, het tegenover elkaar stellen

Français (French)
n. - confrontation, affrontement, rencontre

Deutsch (German)
n. - Konfrontation, Auseinandersetzung, Gegenüberstellung

Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - αντιμετώπιση, αντιπαράθεση

Italiano (Italian)
scontro, confronto, raffronto

Português (Portuguese)
n. - confronto (m)

Русский (Russian)
конфронтация

Español (Spanish)
n. - confrontación, careo

Svenska (Swedish)
n. - konfrontation, kraftmätning

中文（简体） (Chinese (Simplified))
对抗, 对峙, 对证

中文（繁體） (Chinese (Traditional))
n. - 對抗, 對峙, 對證

한국어 (Korean)
n. - 대면, 대질

日本語 (Japanese)
n. - 対決, 直面

العربيه (Arabic)
‏(الاسم) مجابهه, مواجهه‏

עברית (Hebrew)
n. - ‮עימות, הקבלה‬

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