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André Green refers to his latest and deeply revealing book as his “last will” (p. xv). Portraying his thought in the manner of the last great Freudian, Green, in Key Ideas for a Contemporary Psychoanalysis, is at his most sensitive, honest, and passionate, making this book an absolute pleasure to read.
A mild warning is due, however: in typical Green style, opinions are introduced with certainty and force, at times appearing too subjective and even offensive to the sensitive reader who is not used to his manner and personality. Those who are familiar with his very early work will hear a bitter sense of disillusionment in his tone when Lacan is brought into his discourse as if the latter represented the irreconcilable third term that threatened to distance him, if only slightly, from the Freudian body of work.1 Yet one cannot escape observing the Lacanian that has survived in Green and, for those familiar with French psychoanalysis, this may seem to threaten the originality of some of his ideas. His work, however, may be said to comprise an intricately woven fabric of Lacanian, Bionian, and Winnicottian thought, carefully selected to advance the Freudian model into the field of non-neurotic structures.
Although comprising only 321 pages from cover to cover, this book is massive in its richness and complexity though it is much easier to