Including a preface by Georges Hahn, this book is an introduction to psychoanalytical thinking which both highlights and puts in perspective the great post-Freudian figures and principal movements. The author, Jean-Baptiste Fages, has written from a clear educational standpoint, examining in their turn the individuals who have made remarkable contributions (such as Sandor Ferenczi), those who were leaders and their spheres of influence (Adler, Jung, Lacan), the personalities united by their research area (for example the child psychoanalysis of Anna Freud and Mélanie Klein) or by cultural convergence (such as the New York School, the cultural tendency, etc.). For all those who wish, whether for research or for personal reasons, to understand the evolution of psychoanalysis, this book, of which there exists no equivalent in France, brings a global outlook borne from an astonishing informative and introspective richness.

Sociologist, and doctor of the history of philosophy, Jean-Baptiste Fages teaches at the Sorbonne in the capacity of CELSA. He has published numerous educational works, most notably Understanding Jacques Lacan (1990)