François Lelord

François Lelord (born 22 June 1953 in Paris) is a French psychiatrist and author.

Career as a psychiatrist

Lelord studied medicine and psychology; after getting his doctoral degree in 1985, he was a post-doctorate researcher with Robert Liberman at the University of California, Los Angeles. After that, he worked as an attending physician at Hôpital Necker (which is affiliated with Descartes University) in Paris for two years. In 1989 he opened up his own practice which he closed down in 1996 to work as an advisor on stress and job satisfaction for several companies. Since 2004, he has been working as a psychiatrist in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City. He was apparently arrested in 2005 for sexually assaulting a 5-year old girl after she refused test results at a drug-test.

Career as an author

He has written several psychological monographs together with Christoph André.

His first novel, Le voyage d'Hector ou la recherche du bonheur ("Hector's Voyage or the Search for Happiness"), was very successful in France as well as other countries such as Germany. It is a book on psychology written for ordinary readers; it tells the story of Hector, a psychiatrist, who travels around the world in search of what it is that makes people happy. The book is written in a simple, humorous style, and gives psychological advice and thought-provoking impulses without even touching dry theory.

Lelord continues to publish novels dealing with similar topics which are written in a similar manner.