International Dictionary of Psychoanalysis, 3 volumes, Editor-in-Chief, Alainde Mijolla  Thomson/Gale New York, 2005, $395.00.

This International Dictionary of Psychoanalysis was originally published as Dictionnaire International de la Psychanalyse in 2002 by Editions Calmann-Levy. It is a beautifully printed three volumes and the only difficulty with the hard cover edition is that the books are very heavy and hard to read on one's lap. Curiously, the editor lists himself as a “neuropsychiatrist and psychoanalyst” and is a member of the Paris Psychoanalytic Society, and the International Psychoanalytic Association. There is an editorial board for the French edition, a U.S. advisory board, and a board of translators. This is clearly a major undertaking produced by French psychoanalysts, and the book is very heavy with French concepts and biographies of French psychoanalysts, many of whom I have never heard.

It is remarkable to experience how alive and fertile psychoanalysis is in France, compared to its almost moribund condition in the U.S.A. However the writings of the French psychoanalysts are more romantic and, at times, almost metaphysical. One is reminded of the exchange between the Queen and Polonius in Hamlet: