Serge Stoléru is a psychiatrist, has a Ph.D. in psychology, and is a researcher at Inserm based at Hospital Paul-Brousse in Villejuif, Paris. His work as a researcher led him from psychoanalysis to the neurosciences; he is one of the first to have used functional neuro-imaging techniques to understand and theorize the neurobiological foundations of sexual desire.
Understanding our affective states and emotions enables us to better control them and to be less passive about them. From Spinoza to psychoanalysis, the author connects the dots, concluding that concern with and knowledge of the self can be potentially liberating. Self-knowledge takes on an ethical dimension.

This book reveals and promotes an analytical method based on a protocol called ESM (semi-structured multi-register exploration) that can be used by a psychoanalyst during sessions or by the patient alone within a context of self-analysis, as a complement to ongoing analysis, or as a means to prolong a completed analysis.

The psychoanalytical material is supported in part by neuro-cerebral data. The argument is illustrated by specific examples with careful, practical explanations.

The book, in fact, has a practical goal: to propose a method analysists can use during sessions, and above all to provide patients (both adults and children) with a method they can use without an analyst, either during analysis or when analysis has ended.

As such, it is a sort of handy guide for self-knowledge, which can be invaluable for all.