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In this book composed of interviews conducted at an allegro vivace pace, André Green gives us a panoramic view of his psychoanalytic writings, marked by major societal, artistic, scientific and human issues, on the one hand, and by his analytic practice, on the other.
In my opinion, this book is a perfect illustration of the intertwining of the intraanalytic and the extra-analytic; here, psychoanalysis regains its Freudian dialectical co-ordinates, originally guaranteeing its lasting interest. In effect, André Green sets up a lively dialogue between psychoanalysis, literature, theatre, philosophy, psychiatry and the neurosciences; between the psyche and the other essential components of the human.
‘But who is this man whose entire oeuvre is a praise of transmission?’ (p. 14). This is the question Maurice Corcos, psychiatrist and hospital practitioner, sets out to answer in the course of his interviews with André Green. In fact, Green's answers seem to illustrate the intimate relation between these two questions, one about the man and the other about his oeuvre, as this relation develops through and in his analytic practice. The latter determines his reading of his own life and culture, his interpretation of knowledge about the human and of the history of psychoanalysis in France, as well as the elaboration of his theory.
Green's dialogue with a psychiatrist, particularly one with a psychoanalytic culture, makes for a suspenseful confrontation. From the start, the reader is invited to consider the double question: how are psychoanalytic practice and psychiatric practice alike and different? They are brought face to face in order to expose their similarities and differences, in order for each one to define itself, bringing to light the main lines of Green's thought. All along, four themes are developed: history, culture, Green's