Psychoanalysis: A Paradigm for Clinical Thinking

by André Green

Thought inhabits diverse fields of activity. It can be philosophical, scientific or religious. But, unless it renounces the theoretical exigency underlying it, it cannot invest the domain of clinical work. How should the mode of rationality arising from psychoanalytic practice be qualified? How is the work of thought involved in the experience of the treatment to be accounted for? Andr Green shows how it is possible to introduce the concept of clinical thinking into psychoanalysis. He analyzes, in particular, the modification of the clinical pictures on which Freud s work was constructed, contributing innovations and answers that the father of psychoanalysis could not foresee.

324 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2002

About the author

André Green was a French psychoanalyst. He was born in Cairo, Egypt, to non observant Jewish parents. He studied medicine (specialising in psychiatry) at Paris Medical School and worked at several hospitals. Then, in 1965, after having finished his training as a psychoanalyst, he became a member of the Paris Psychoanalytic Society (SPP), of which he was the president from 1986 to 1989. From 1975 to 1977 he was a vice president of the International Psychoanalytical Association and from 1979 to 1980 a professor at University College London. He died, aged 84, in Paris.