The Greening of Psychoanalysis: André Green’s New Paradigm in Contemporary Theory and Practice

The influence of André Green on psychoanalysis has been immeasurable – his theoretical, clinical and cultural contributions have identified him as one of the most important psychoanalytic thinkers of our times. The present book brings together a group of eminent psychoanalysts from different parts of the world, all of whom presented the papers included in this volume at the 2015 Conference on The Greening of Psychoanalysis. Every one of these texts conveys a rich sense of continuing a conversation, always creative, albeit challenging, forever engaging and fruitful, with André Green. This book is an invitation to the reader to join in.

Reviews & Endorsements

“The authors who contribute to The Greening of Psychoanalysis offer a kind of “Planet Green” that we are invited to explore and perhaps even inhabit analytically. They reside in the symbolic environment created by André Green. As Kohon reminds us, in the words of Shakespeare, “we are such stuff as dreams are made on”. At the outset, Rosine Perelberg’s impressive study highlights Green’s major contributions on narcissism, thirdness, psychic temporality, and the death drives, as well as the openings towards the obscure domains of clinical practice with borderline patients. Poetry is never far from Green’s discourse, as the unforgettable dead mother reminds us. The idea of the negative is to the unconscious what perspective was to painting in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries: it offers depth and space. The book is a testament to the eloquence and creativity that Green, as well as the authors inspired by him, have brought to all domains of human endeavour, be they clinical or aesthetic. We cannot be the same analysts after Green as we were before.”

– Jean Claude Rolland, Training Analyst of the Association Psychanalytique de France, author, and co-editor of the 30 volumes of Libres Cahiers Pour la Psychanalyse