These days a book on psychosis composed entirely of psychoanalytic contributions is a rarity. It can create surprise that in what some have called ldquothe deca... » 

These days a book on psychosis composed entirely of psychoanalytic contributions is a rarity. It can create surprise that in what some have called ldquothe decade of the brainldquo scholars on psychoanalysis psychiatry and psychology still continue to develop a project of understanding and explaining psychosis from a phenomenological and psychodynamic perspective.And yet such a project not only continues to exist in spite of the dominance of the neurobiological model but elaborates itself selfconsciously in contradistinction to and even as a corrective to this model.The contributors to this publication share the following concernldquoThe presentday biologisation and neurologisation of psychiatry has dangerously deemphasized the concern with the individual suffering soul with the psyche in psychiatry. But if this means a gain in the scientific status of psychiatry it is at the same time a loss for patients and practitioners alike.rdquo Lothane Z. 2002 The Perennial Sullivan p. 7880Most of the contributions made to this volume build globally on the ideas of De Waelhens known for his studies in phenomenology on Heidegger and MerlauPonty as well as for his phenomenological and psychoanalytical research in psychosis. The limits of phenomenology as formulated by De Waelhens in the last chapter of his La philosophie et les experiences naturelles 1961 incited him to broaden the scope of his perspective to unravel the basic existential structures to Dasein it is necessary to study human existence in its vulnerability and it is exactly this vulnerability that breaks through in phenomena such as schizophrenia and paranoia. The broadening of his perspective obliged him to combine phenomenology with psychoanalysis and this resulted in his major work Schizophrenia A philosophical reflection on Lacanrsquos structuralistic interpretation 1978 recently partially reedited by Ver Eecke in our series Figures of the unconscious. «