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Do not judge this book by its cover. The catchy title and the blurb on the back overemphasize the iconoclast in Roustang and do not give him the recognition he deserves as a serious psychoanalytic thinker. The book is eloquently written, but at the same time it is not easy to read. Roustang's radical ideas, reflective of his diverse professional background, are sometimes hard to swallow. A Jesuit priest before undergoing analytic training, he spent his years as a candidate in an institute that was steeped in Lacanian doctrine. It did not take long before he became disillusioned with Lacan's thinking. As he broke with Lacan, he developed a feverish desire to unearth the roots of what he perceived as dehumanizing attitudes in Lacanian doctrine, as well as in other psychoanalytic schools. He became a provocateur whose works were designed to jar, disturb, and disorganize. He wishes to show us what we do not want to see and to tell us what is difficult for us to hear.
This book contains fifteen essays, written over a period of ten years beginning in 1982. Roustang raises some meaningful questions: Why is it that psychoanalysis in many instances produces little or no benefit? Why do some patients actually deteriorate over the