Jean-Michel Oughourlian is the former chief of psychiatry at the American Hospital of Paris and taught for many years at the Sorbonne and the University of Franche-Comté.

• Contents Author’s Note Preface Introduction Part 1. Towards a Mimetic Anthropology Chapter 1. Contagious Desire Chapter 2. The Precursors Chapter 3. Some Contemporaries Part 2. A Psychiatry of the Three Brains Chapter 4. Interdividual Psychology Chapter 5. Psychological Time and the Nodal Points N and N' Chapter 6. The Three Brains Chapter 7. The Three Possibilities of the Interdividual Rapport Chapter 8. Classical Nosology Part 3. An Essay in Mimetic Nosology Chapter 9. Figures of the Other in Normal Experience Chapter 10. Figures of the Other in Neurotic Experience Chapter 11. Figures of the Other in Psychotic Experience Chapter 12. Mood Disorders Chapter 13. Diseases of Desire Part 4. The Dialectic of the Rational, Emotional, and Mimetic Brains Chapter 14. The Mimetic Mechanism Chapter 15. Some Clinical Studies Conclusion Notes Bibliography Index

“This is Oughourlian’s most important book since The Puppet of Desire. . . . Its theory of the three ‘brain functions’—rational, emotive, and mimetic—is clearly explained and well-illustrated with fascinating case studies that show how psychoses and neuroses need to be understood as involving the interaction of all three in different proportions relating to the particular case. As an added bonus, the author’s warm humanity and sense of humor make this book a delight to read.”–Eugene Webb, professor emeritus, University of Washington