Jean-Michel Oughourlian is the former chief of psychiatry at the American Hospital of Paris and a former professor of clinical psychopathology at the Sorbonne. He collaborated with René Girard on Things Hidden since the Foundation of the World (1978) and has authored several books on psychiatry, neuroscience, and mimetic theory, including The Genesis of Desire (2008), Psychopolitics (2012), and The Mimetic Brain (2016). He is a founding member of the Association Recherches Mimétiques, a French organization devoted to René Girard’s thought.

• Contents Preface I. Vertical Alterity II. Horizontal Alterity III. Avatars and Problems Posed by Alterity IV. A Concise History of Alterity V. Toward the Discovery of Alterity VI. Alterity in the Creation of Man and Woman in Plato and Greek Mythology VII. The Clinical Reality of Alterity VIII. Alterity in Physical Medicine IX. Mimetic Psychotherapy: Illnesses and Problems Alterity from Day to Day Guilt Comparison Envy and Jealousy Love Anxiety and Anguish Do These Problems Have Solutions? Gladiators, Bull Fights, Boxing Matches Games of Chance and Games of Intelligence Alcoholism Impersonators Terrorism Alterity without Rivalry: Masks XI. The Otherizing of the Gods Conclusion References Research Bibliography Index