Jacques Lacan: An Outline of a Life and History of a System of Thought Hardcover - 1997

From the publisher

Jacques Lacan, one of the foremost intellectuals of the century - and one of the most controversial - fought to remake psychoanalysis. Throughout a brilliant, unorthodox career, he reshaped many areas of modern thought and culture in ways that still resonate today, fifteen years after his death. Often outrageous and bizarre in his public and personal life, Lacan provoked extreme reactions and has been as widely condemned and denounced as he has been worshipped.

Historian, psychoanalyst, and close member of Lacan's inner circle, Elisabeth Roudinesco is perfectly positioned to tell the story of so complicated an intellect and so contentious a personality. Balscian in its sweep, this book tells of the young man from the provinces determined to leave his family's fortune and oldfashioned values behind, and of the young doctor in Paris who set out to reinvent psychoanalysis. Roudinesco follows Lacan's career from his early clinical practice to his many conflicts with the psychoanalytical establishment as he strove to reclaim Freud, waged intense ideological battles, opened and then closed centres for training and therapy.

This monumental work is much more than a fascinating portrait of an extraordinary life: it is also an illuminating explication of Lacan's unorthodox, often perplexing ideas and theoretical concepts and a uniquely informative chronicle of one of the most influential French intellectuals of the twentieth century.