Schizophrenia: A Philosophical Reflection on Lacan's Structuralist Interpretation Hardcover – January 1, 1978by Alphonse de Waelhens (Author), Wilfried Ver Eecke (Translator).

Pittsburgh, PA Duquesne University Press, 1978. Paperback First Edition Thus, Third Printing [1990]. Near Fine in Wraps: shows only the most minute indications of use: just a hint of wear to extremities and there is a mild bump to the upper rear corner, imparting a faint crease; mildest rubbing and faint toning to the white background field of the wrapper covers. Binding square and secure; text clean.Structurally sound and tightly bound. Not without flaw, but shows minimal wear: Very close to 'As New'. NOT a Remainder, Book-Club, or Ex-Library. 8vo. 261pp. Translated with an Introduction by Wilfried Vre Eecke. Duquesne Philosophical Series, Volume 35. First Edition Thus, Third Printing [1990]. This book appears to have perhaps been updated or perhaps simply re -issued in 2001 under the title: "Phenomenology and Lacan on Schizophrenia after the Decade of the Brain (Figures of the Unconscious)" by the Leuven University Press. University Press Paperback. In Phenomenology and Lacan on Schizophrenia, Alphonse De Waelhens provides a clear summary of Lacan's theory of schizophrenia, as Lacan derived it from his commentary of Freud's study of the Memoirs of Schreber. De Waelhens also shows how Lacan's understanding of the schizophrenic as having a defective relation to language can also explain four other characteristics of schizophrenic behavior: the fragmented body image; lack of realistic evaluation of the world; so-called bisexuality; and confusion of birth and death. Third, De Waelhens gives a Hegelian interpretation of the pre-Oedipal experience of the child. He makes use of Freud's study on his grand-child using a bobbin and later the words fort-da (away-here), to demonstrate that a transitional object allows the child to take distance from its attachment to the mother so that it can start to separate itself from the mother. Taking distance is, according to De Waelhens, introducing the Hegelian negative, which is the birth of the subject. Fourth, De Waelhens gives a dialectic reading of the history of German and French psychiatry. He shows the epistemological contradictions in the work of some of the great nineteenth century psychiatrists relying too exclusively on a biological model of schizophrenia.