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French psychoanalytic theory is difficult—at least in a common Scandinavian psychoanalytic context, where for years we have been influenced by the American psychoanalytic way of thinking.
This book, put together by Iréne Matthis, shows that French psychoanalytic thinking is difficult for us to understand, but at the same time, implies a lot of creativity. The book contains seven different contributions by six of the most influentive French psychoanalysts.
Lacan is not represented as an author, but he has influenced most of the authors in the book. The chapters are composed of new works, written in the late seventies or eighties, and several of them are already classics, e.g., André Green's chapter on the dead mother.
Iréne Matthis has made a very fine contribution in collecting together these six authors in her book. She is a learned guide for the reader. She has written a very concise introduction, where as a scholar, she provides the reader with information about the different authors in relation to the different French psychoanalytic societies; in particular, she discusses similarities to and differences from American psychoanalytic theory. Iréne Matthis finishes the book in the same concise way. She comments on each chapter and thereby helps the reader who is not experienced in the complicated way of thinking of some of the authors.
The main theme in this anthology is the borderline area and the analytic problems in the preverbal area. The authors try to enter into a dialogue with the reader, rather than give a rational statement about the subject. One of the authors, Joyce McDougall, also emphasizes this process between the patient and the analyst by saying that the patient with emotional preverbal problems wishes to share the unspoken themes. Primarily, the patient, according to McDougall, wants to be heard rather than be listened