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Anthony Wilden: The Language of the Self
Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins Press, 1968, xxix + 338 pp.
THIS BOOK INCLUDES three separate parts. First, there is presented the "Discourse of Rome, " a tract by the French philosopher-psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan, bearing the specific title "The Function of Language in Psychoanalysis." Secondly, there are a number of notes written by the translator in the hope of explaining Lacan's very nearly incomprehensible prose. Thirdly, there is an extended exegesis of Lacan's thinking, written by the translator-annotator. In this section, Wilden seeks to introduce order into Lacan's writings for the general public not privileged to attend his seminars. It is of interest with reference to the field of psychoanalysis that Lacan is almost completely unknown to his American colleagues. In the opposite direction, Lacan goes out of his way to criticize American psychoanalysts as "philistines, " and to show his contempt for American preoccupation with experimental approaches to psychology.
The split in the psychoanalytic movement thus again demonstrated is, interestingly enough, so routine as to be one of the most repetitively demonstrable of aspects of that movement. The trend toward a narrow sectarianism, with repetitive dichotomizations within existing groups, has been seen repeatedly in the United States during the period in which psychoanalysis has shown remarkable growth. Both within the larger group claiming direct