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Phenomenology and Lacan on Schizophrenia, after the Decade of the Brain is an ambitious, complex, scholarly, and well-written book. It consists of two distinct but interrelated parts. The latter two-thirds of the text is a republication of Wilfried Ver Eecke's 1978 English translation of Alphonse De Waelhens's Schizophrenia, published originally in French as La Psychose . De Waelhens studies psychotic behavior from phenomenological and philosophical perspectives, informed by the psychoanalytic work of Freud and Lacan. He expresses the hope that such interdisciplinary work will “clarify the potentiality for madness lying at the very heart of the structures that are constitutive of the human condition” (p. 12). His work interpreting Lacan's conceptualization of schizophrenia has long been considered a seminal contribution (see Lemaire 1977). Since the original publication of De Waelhens's book, the discovery of additional seminars by Lacan and historical research on Schreber's life have strengthened De Waelhens's theory of schizophrenia. These factors, coupled with Ver Eecke's belief that De Waelhens's and Lacan's understanding of the psychic structure of the schizophrenic has significant clinical utility, justify the republication of Schizophrenia.
The first part of the book is a lengthy monograph, written recently by Ver Eecke and dedicated to the memory of his teacher De Waelhens. It prepares the reader for De Waelhens's text, and stands on its own as a work of serious scholarship. Ver Eecke is addressing an English-speaking audience, which consists both of non-Lacanian psychoanalysts, like me, who have little or no knowledge of Lacan's or De Waelhens's work, and Lacanian psychoanalysts, who have an interest in work with psychotic patients. My review will focus on Ver Eecke's contribution.