In our image-dominated culture, the body, which fuels our fantasies from love to cruelty, acts as a major target for advertisers and marketing experts. It could be argued that it is the body, rather than speech, that most closely reflects our movements and thoughts. This book explores the emphasis on the body and examines the role it plays in exchanges and communication. Francis Hofstein draws on his day-to-day experience with patients and on his view of the world, and gives us a fresh reading of Freud and Lacan.

With an analyst's sharpness, Hofstein examines a variety of subjects centred on the body and on how we relate to it: the obsession with health and self-image, concerns with suffering and handicaps, the way others see us, the difficulty of obtaining pleasure, the search for physical perfection, violence. This is not a how-to book listing tips and advice, but an in-depth analytical study.

Francis Hofstein, a psychiatrist, psychoanalyst, writer and jazz critic, joined the Freudian School in 1967 and was close to Lacan. He writes for Jazz Magazine and contributed to Le Dictionnaire du jazz (Bouquins). He is the author of La Poison de la dépendance, Le Rhythm and Blues and Muddy Waters.