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In this brief, tightly reasoned work, Stijn Vanheule, Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of Ghent, Belgium, undertakes to show the unfolding of Jacques Lacan's conceptions of psychosis over a fifty-year period. Lacan wrote and commented a great deal on the subject of psychosis, so the material is abundant, but for the most part his diverse contributions are poorly integrated and famously difficult to interpret. Yet for anyone interested in understanding and treating psychotic patients, Lacan offers original ideas that diverge from conventional psychoanalytic approaches (perhaps more than is the case for neurosis). Vanheule does not attempt to compare or evaluate theories but focuses on what he sees as four distinct stages of Lacan's thinking about psychosis and the theoretical contexts of their development. His clear expository style displays an impressive command of Lacanian theory that will be instructive for anyone who wishes to grasp the difficult logic of Lacan's project.
As a young psychiatrist in training at the Sainte-Anne Hospital in 1931, Lacan encountered his patient Aimée, who had stabbed a well-known actress in a jealous rage. This case became the focus of his doctoral thesis, which was subsequently published. Lacan emphasized both organic factors and major life events as leading to her illness, not an unusual approach at the time, but he also attempted to construct a third factor using psychoanalytic theory, which he was beginning to study at the Paris Institute. Lacan sought an explanation specific to psychosis