Illusions and Disillusions of Psychoanalytic Work

Andre Green (1927-2012) was a psychoanalyst who lived and worked in Paris. He was President of the Paris Psycho-Analytical Society and was Vice-President of the International Psychoanalytic Association. He was co-editor of the Nouvelle Revue de Psychanalyse. He also wrote numerous books, including 'On Private Madness', 'The Work of the Negative', 'The Fabric of Affect in the Psychoanalytical Discourse', 'The Chains of Eros', 'Life Narcissism. Death Narcissism' and 'Key Ideas for a Contemporary Psychoanalysis'.

• Psychoanalytic Ideas and Applications Series , Preface , Introduction , Presentation , Theoretical Study , From the treatment of neuroses to the crisis of psychoanalysis , Lacanian thinking on language , The setting and its interpretation , Die Entstellung , The metaphorization of analytic speech , The negative therapeutic reaction , The notion of failure , Variety of traumas , Some effects of the primitive superego , The ego prior to repression , Libidinal styles , Drive fusion and defusion , The modifications of the ego and the work of the negative , Diverse critical situations and acute somatizations , Causes and remedies , Recent suggestions concerning the treatment of cases resistant to the therapeutic effect of analysis , Methodological principles of psychoanalysis and the psychotherapies , Conclusions , Clinical Study , (A) Some examples drawn from the experience of collaborators , (B) Personal memories of some case histories , Illusions and Disillusions of Psychoanalytic Work , The internalization of the negative , Hypotheses concerning the negative beyond clinical findings , An encounter at the end of the journey , Postscript

'Andre Green's lucidity . combined with his rigorous approach, underlies the elaboration of this book as well as that of his work in general, but it does not lead him to radical pessimism. On the contrary, it opens out on to a note of hope, for, after giving a lucid account of these disappointing and sometimes tragic evolutions, the author seeks to account for their causes. This also attests to the depth of his psychoanalytic and human commitment to these difficult patients, a commitment that he does not regret in spite of these evolutions of which he has "recollections of disappointing experiences,but not bad memories".'- Christine Delourmel, from the Preface