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Dr. Julio Granel is a prestigious Argentine psychoanalyst who for many years has specialized in the investigation of accidents from a psychoanalytic perspective. During medical training he was soon intrigued by the riddle of accidents, generally a consequence of absurd, incredible mistakes with very serious consequences in the lives of accident patients. Later, when he began training at the Argentine Psychoanalytic Association, he found the methodological instrument that would enable him to begin to unveil this mystery. The many papers he has presented in international congresses over the past 25 years bear witness to these developments. One of them, the paper he presented to the International Psychoanalytic Congress in Hamburg, Considerations on the capacity to change: The clash of identifications and having accidents, was published in the International Review of Psycho-Analysis in 1987. Another significant milestone was marked in 1982 by the creation in Buenos Aires of an institution devoted to this work: the Centre of Psychological Investigations for the Study and Prevention of Accidents. He was joined in this institution by a large group of disciples who worked to expand these investigations and to train analysts as specialists in accident investigation and in treatment of accident patients.
This book presented by Granel is thus a result of long years of investigation and clinical experience, and fills a gap in psychoanalytic literature by condensing the knowledge acquired. It made for very attractive reading during which I discovered many interesting and novel aspects of the psychoanalytic theory of accidents.
Accidents, definitely on the rise worldwide, inform us of ‘civilization's discontent in the 21st century. Psychoanalytic investigation of accidents is therefore particularly valuable since it provides a tool to access their deep