On Private Madness.: By André Green. London: Hogarth Press and the Institute of Psycho-Analysis. 1986.

In bringing this collection of papers to an English-speaking readership, André Green aims to bridge the gap between French and Anglo-Saxon psychoanalytic cultures; a gap which has grown from the different cultural traditions at large.

Green preempts the anticipated criticism from the other side of the Channel that his book contains virtually no clinical material by saying that clinical observation does not constitute proof of what an analyst advances from a theoretical point of view since presenting material can be modulated to fit one's demonstration and the same material can be used to illustrate opposing views. (He also mentions the perennial problem of confidentiality.) This is an interesting topic in itself which touches on the nature of psychoanalytic theorizing, its scientific status, the role of practice in relation to theory, the 'therapeutic' dimension of psychoanalysis etc. However, this is not the purpose of this book. Rather Green is aiming at a discussion of fundamental issues in psychoanalysis, integrating in his discussion the works of French, British and American psychoanalysts. This he does with open mindedness. He acknowledges a debt to the British Psycho-Analytical Society. His particular affinity is to the work of Donald Winnicott and he also pays tribute to the work of Wilfred Bion.

Green is at pains to make clear that he has never belonged to the school of Lacan, though he took part in his seminars for some years and is very well acquainted with Lacan's thinking. An important motif through the book is an implicit or explicit critique of the Lacanian perspective.

Green's book, a collection of 14 papers written over more than a decade, many of which appear here in English for the first time, covers tremendous ground, theoretical and metapsychological but Green is also clearly concerned with 'practice'. 'Theoretical options have practical consequences.'

The papers are varied and the arguments complex and I cannot do justice to them here. I w