Skip to Content

LACAN, JACQUES.

De la Psychose Paranoïaque dans les rapports avec la personnalité. - [MAGNIFICENT PRESENTATION-COPY WITH AN EXCEPTIONAL PROVENANCE]

Herman H. J. Lynge & Søn A/S
lyn59832
Paris, 1932. 8vo. Original grey printed wrappers with signs of reading, but overall very good. A bit of wear along hinges (with very neat, barely noticeable professional restoration), a few smaller creases to front wrapper and an old owner's inscription in red crayon. A small closed tear to back wrapper. Many notes and underlinings (by Mijolla - see note below) and inlaid are sevaral leaves with notes. Inscribed to half-title. (14), XIII, (1), 381, (3) pp. Housed in a custom-made blue cloth box with see-through front board and gilt lettering to spine.

Very rare first edition, presentation-copy with an exceptional provenance, of Lacan's groundbreaking doctoral thesis, which constitutes the foundation of all his later work and inaugurated a new era in psychology and psychiatry. The copy is inscribed and signed by Jacques Lacan to professor Hesnard - highly important fellow psychiatrist famous for introducing Freud in France - in November 1932 ("à monsieur le professeur Hesnard en signe de ma respectueuse sympathie, Jacques Lacan, Ce 26 novembre 1932"). Furthermore, the copy has been in the possession of the important psychoanalyst and historian Alain de Mijolla (1933-2019) and bears his extensive notes and underlinings. Lacan, who is often referred to as "the most controversial psycho-analyst since Freud", "the father of French psychoanalytical thinking", and a towering intellectual giant of the twentieth century, plays as dominant a role in modern psychology and the development of psychological thought as Freud. It is his doctoral dissertation (the present work) that constitutes the inaugural moment in his work. "Lacan's theoretical engagement with psychosis constitutes a central platform for his ventures into psychoanalysis; from his doctoral thesis on paranoia in the 1930s through to his seminar on Joyce in the 1970s, the question concerning the psychoanalytic treatment of psychosis was at the forefront of his clinical work." Aimée, Lacan's patient and subject of his thesis, bears the same importance for the history of psychology as Anna O., the patient in Freud and Breuer's "Stydies of Hysteria". Aimée was a thirty-eight-year-old woman, who had tried to stab the celebrated actress Huguette Duflos and was thus imprisoned, in April 1931. The story immediately reached the press, and "Aimée" (Lacan's pseudonym for her) became famous in the whole country. Lacan began to see her one month later at the Sainte-Anne Hospital. Through biographical inquiry, Lacan established a classic picture of her and noticed a development that would come to play a central role in his psychological theory: after three weeks of incarceration, Aimée was almost completely out of her delusional state, which Lacan considered evidence of the acute nature of her paranoia. This connection, which according to Lacan meant that she found consolation only in her punishment, not in the act itself, caused Lacan to propose a new diagnostic category, namely "self-punishment paranoia." "It [i.e. "De la Psychose Paranoïaque"] took on the importance that had previously been accorded to studies in hysteria in the rise of the international movement. Just as Freud had given hysteria its patents of nobility in endowing it with full-fledged existence as an illness, so Lacan, forty years later, gave paranoia, and more generally psychosis, an analogous place within the French movement" (E. Roudinesco: La Bataille de cent ans, l'histoire de la psychanalyse en France, Vol. 2, p. 114). With Lacan's doctoral dissertation, Aimée quickly became a cause celebre for the surrealists. In the "De la Psychose Paranoïaque", Lacan also included a selection of Aimee's copious writings, which were produced at the height of her psychosis. This also contributed to the immediate importance of the work and to the spreading of Lacan's novel theories. "Certainly it was this feature which was seized upon by its first surrealist readers, and which gave to this medical thesis right from the start a position in contemporary, even avant-garde thinking, which was markedly different from the usual dustgathering oblivion that is the fate of such work." (Olga Cox-Cameron: Lacan's Doctoral Thesis: Turbulent Preface or Founding Legend?) "Jacques Lacan is regarded as the father of French psychoanalytical thinking. He trained in mainstream psychiatry and his doctorate thesis was supervised by Gaétan de Clérambault. After the Second World War he became a cult figure in French intellectual circles, mixing Freudian ideas with social comment. As with many French intellectuals, he founded an ephemeral one-man movement with many followers" (Preface to the English translation (1986)). "Jacques Lacan (April 13, 1901 to September 9, 1981) was a major figure in Parisian intellectual life for much of the twentieth century. Sometimes referred to as "the French Freud," he is an important figure in the history of psychoanalysis. His teachings and writings explore the significance of Freud's discovery of the unconscious both within the theory and practice of analysis itself as well as in connection with a wide range of other disciplines. Particularly for those interested in the philosophical dimensions of Freudian thought, Lacan's oeuvre is invaluable. Over the course of the past fifty-plus years, Lacanian ideas have become central to the various receptions of things psychoanalytic in Continental philosophical circles especially." (SEP). Provenance: Angelo Louis Marie Hesnard (1886-1969) was an extremely important early French psychonanalyst and psychiatrist famous for his contributions to French sexology in the 30'ies and his groundbreaking early studies on Freud. He was a founding member of the Société psychanalytique de Paris, founded in 1926, and he occupies a central role in the history of modern psychoanalysis, being the co-author of the first French work on psychoanalysis and the person who introduced Freudian psychoanalysis to France. In the fifties he debated with Jacques Lacan over the meaning of Freud's saying "Where It was, shall I be"; but when debarred by the IPA from the roster of training analysts as a representative of the chauvinist wing of French psychoanalysis, he followed Lacan into the École Freudienne de Paris in 1964. "HESNARD, ANGÉLO LOUIS MARIE (1886-1969)A psychoanalyst, doctor with the French Navy, and professor at the École Principale du Service de Santé de la Marine... He was coauthor of the first French work on psychoanalysis and one of the founding members of the Société Psychanalytique de Paris (SPP). He was the son of Angélo Théodose Hesnard and Lélia Célénis Rosalie Blancon, from a family of judges. His brother Oswald, who had a degree in German, helped him understand Freud's writings.After completing his studies in Pontivy, he entered the École de Santé de la Marine et des Colonies in Bordeaux on October 20, 1905. A student of Albert Pitres, then of Emmanuel Régis, he wrote his dissertation in 1909 on "Les troubles de la personnalité dans lesétats d'asthénie psychique," in which there is a reference to Freud. He continued his military career in Toulon, then, from 1910 to 1912, on the armored cruiser "Amiral Charner" in the Middle East.Upon his return in 1912 he was appointed assistant at the Clinique des Maladies Mentales at the University of Bordeaux, where he rejoined Emmanuel Régis, who encouraged Hesnard to study Freud. On January 2, Freud wrote to Karl Abraham, "Today I received a letter from a student of Régis, in Bordeaux, written on his behalf, apologizing in the name of French psychiatry for its present neglect of Ya." According to a letter to Ernest Jones on January 14, the reference is to the "apologies from the French nation" that Freud received. This was followed in 1913 by the publication of "La doctrine de Freud et de sonécole" by Emmanuel Régis and Angélo Hesnard in "L'Encéphale"." La Psychanalyse des névroses et des psychoses " appeared in 1914. It was a lengthy précis-and as faithful as it was possible to be at the time-of Freud's principal theories, as Sándor Ferenczi noted in the review of the book he wrote in 1915. This was followed by an examination of the criticisms the theories had received from various authors, and finally by several commentaries, of which Hesnard claimed, after Régis' death, that he-Régis-was the principal author.They recognized that "Freud's system seems to constitute, regardless of what one may say, one of the most important scientific movements of the current psychological period." Nonetheless, their remarks essentially referred to what appeared to them to be no more than "ingenious assumptions" that were both original and well understood, since-and this is an argument that would be repeated for decades to come-"Freud's method of conception is based on that of Janet, whom he has constantly been inspired by. Transforming the term 'psychological analysis,' employed by Janet, into psychoanalysis has changed nothing in the method used by both students of Charcot." The causal importance given to sexuality or symbolism was also criticized. While Freud, in his "On the History of the Psychoanalytic Movement" (1914d), concluded that "Régis and Hesnard (Bordeaux) have recently [1914] attempted to disperse the prejudices of their countrymen against the new ideas by an exhaustive presentation, which, however, is not always understanding and takes special exception to symbolism," he reproached Hesnard for years for this type of finding. In France the work remained the only extensive essay on psychoanalysis for nearly twenty years and was reprinted in 1922 and 1929." (Encycl.). Alain de Mijolla (1933-2019) was a psychoanalyst in the Societe psychanalytique de Paris in 1968, and by 2001 a training analyst there. He also created and chaired the International Association of History of the Psychoanalysis (AIHP) and received the Mary S. Sigourney Award in 2004 (stating about him: A renowned author and lecturer, editor and influential researcher of the history of psychoanalytic ideas, Dr. de Mijolla conceived and has directed and edited an authoritative Dictionnaire International de a Pysychanalyse in French and now in English. This dictionary, which has received widespread acclaim in Europe, is an extremely important undertaking for the whole psychoanalytic community. More than four hundred scholars have contributed to this dictionary, which is a landmark in its field. This dictionary of analytic concepts and terms includes commentaries on international psychoanalysis as well as brief biographies of the major pioneers of psychoanalysis. He has also contributed widely in the field of psychoanalytic history and is President of the International Association for the History of Psychoanalysis, which received a Sigourney Award in 2001.He wrote numerous articles and important works in the history of phychoanalytic and edited psychoanalytical collections at several publishers, including the three volumes of the "International Dictionary of Psychoanalysis." He is famous for his studies of Freud that shed new light on the history of psychology and on Freud himself, and he drew Freud into contemporary times, famously stressing the difficulties of representing the psychoanalytic setting in cinematic terms. The first edition of "De la Psychose Paranoïque" is of great scarcity, especially in wrappers and fully complete as here, with the half-title and the 7 unnumbered leaves with printed dedication to family, friends, and mentors. Furthermore, presentation-copies of this landmark work are of extreme scarcity, and the provenance of the present copy is very hard to beat.
Address:
Silkegade 11
DK-1113 Copenhagen
Denmark
Phone:
CVR/VAT:
DK 16 89 50 16

Recently Added From Herman H. J. Lynge & Søn A/S

Regras methódicas para se aprender a escreuer o…
More Photos
VENTURA DA SILVA, JOAQUIM JOSE.
Herman H. J. Lynge & Søn A/S
lyn62100
Lisboa, Officina de Simão Thaddeo Ferreira, 1803. Folio-oblong (365 x 255 mm). In contemporary half calf. Wear to extremies, upper part of spine with loss of leather. Ex-libris pasted on to pasted down front end-paper. With, primarily marginal, brownspotting throughout. Dampstain to inner margin and upper outer margin of last 10 ff. 32 ff. Rare first edition of the most celebrated Portuguese treatise on calligraphy. Joaquim José Ventura da Silva (1777–1849), regarded as one of Portugal's finest calligraphers and teachers of writing, composed this methodological guide to handwriting in which he combines a historical survey of scripts used in Portugal with practical instruction for teaching and learning penmanship.Ventura da Silva is reffered to by Innocencio (Diccionario Bibliographico) as "one of the best Portuguese Calligraphers". A second edition was published in 1819, a third in 1841, and a facsimile was published in Porto in 1899.
More info
John Locke et les philosophes francais. La…
More Photos
SCHØSLER, JØRN.
Herman H. J. Lynge & Søn A/S
lyn62682
Oxford (Voltaire Foundation), 1997. 8vo. In the original blue cloth publisher's binding with gilt title to spine. With the original dust jacket. Ownership signature to inside of front board. Internally clean. VIII, 183 pp.
Minne af von Linné, fader och son. 2 parts.
More Photos
EDIN, SV.
Herman H. J. Lynge & Søn A/S
lyn62673
Stockholm, Nordström, 1808. 8vo. In contemporary half calf. Wear to extremities, upper half of spine partly detached. Inner hinges split. With light brownspotting throughout. (8), 136, 102, (10) pp. + 2 engraved portraits and 2 engraved plates, of which one is folded. First edition. The volume is divided into two sections entitled “von Linné den äldre” and “von Linné den yngre.” The first contains the panegyric on Linnaeus delivered at the Växjö gymnasium on the occasion of the Linnaean centenary. The second opens with a memoir of Linnaeus the Younger, followed by “Historiska upplysningar till Carl von Linné den äldres lefverne” Soulsby 2647.
More info
Udvikling af Læren om Interessentskab og de samme…
More Photos
BANG, P. G.
Herman H. J. Lynge & Søn A/S
lyn62669
Kjøbenhavn, Seidelin, 1829 & 1833. 8vo. Three parts in two volumes, both in the original green paper covered boards. With author's presentation to Danish Professor in Low F. C. Bornemann in both volumes. Wear to spines and scratches to boards. Internally very nice and clean, printed on good paper. (2), 182 pp.; 134 pp. Presentation copy of the rare first edition of P. G. Bang’s seminal work, Udvikling af Læren om Interessentskab og de samme nærmest vedkommende Retsforhold – the very first Danish treatment of the subject, and a milestone in Scandinavian legal history. This pioneering study is regarded as the first jurisprudential exposition of corporate law in Denmark anticipating later systematic treatments of partnership and company legislation. His work established a legal-theoretical foundation for the understanding of partnership agreements, shareholders’ relations and the broader legal framework governing commercial associations. The copy was given by Bang to F.C. Bornemann, a Danish legal professor at the University of Copenhagen from 1840 to 1861, primarily known for applying philosophical methods to legal science. He was influenced by contemporary German philosophers, notably Hegel, in his work on legal philosophy. Peter Georg Bang (1797 – 1861) was a Danish politician and jurist. He served as the Prime Minister of Denmark 1854–1856
More info
The True Watch and Rule of Life or a direction…
More Photos
BRINSLEY, JOHN.
Herman H. J. Lynge & Søn A/S
lyn61602
London, Humphrey Robinson, 1648. 8vo. In contemporary full calf with triple ruled fillets to boards. Wear and soiling to extremities. Missing leather on upper part of spine and lower front corner of spine. Prevvious owner's name to title-page. Internally with marginal dampstaining throughout. A few leaves with tears and a hole. (18), 205, (8), 251 pp.
Planternes Metamorphose. Fire Forelæsninger af K.…
More Photos
MARTIUS, P. v.
Herman H. J. Lynge & Søn A/S
lyn62468
Kjøbenhavn, 1840. 8vo. In recent blue boards. Nice and clean. 80 pp. First Danish translation of Martius' Metamorphosis of Plants. Martius is famous for outlining the modern classification of palms and prepared the first maps of palm biogeography.