Laplanche: an introduction by Dominique Scarfone, translated from the French by Dorothée Bonnigal-Katz

In 1997, the Presses Universitaires de France commissioned Dominique Scarfone for another book for their series Psychanalystes d’aujourd’hui. The result was Jean Laplanche, now available in Dorothée Bonnigal-Katz’s brilliantly clear English translation as Laplanche: an introduction. More than a mere cursory overview of Laplanche’s career, Scarfone’s text presents an unparalleled insight into the mechanisms, provocations, and spectacular theoretical achievements of Laplanche’s work, which has been increasingly recognized as integral to Francophone—and more recently, Anglophone—psychoanalytic practice and theory.

This volume brings together Scarfone’s book with two representative works of Laplanche’s writing: his introduction to the French translation of Freud’s Beyond the Pleasure Principle, perhaps the last major work completed before his death in 2012; and Fantasme Originaire, Fantasmes des Origines, Origines du Fantasme, the classic 1964 essay written in collaboration with J.-B. Pontalis, in a new translation by Jonathan House. Finally, this volume includes a complete bibliography of Laplanche’s work, in English and in French.

Dominique Scarfone is full professor at the Department of Psychology and Psychiatry of the Université de Montréal where he teaches psychoanalytic theory, does clinical supervision, and conducts research. A psychoanalyst in private practice, he is a member of the Société and of the Institut psychanalytique de Montréal, as well as the Canadian Psychoanalytic Society and Institute. He was associate editor of the International Journal of Psychoanalysis and served on the boards of the Canadian Journal of Psychoanalysis and the Revue Française de psychanalyse. He has published four books: Jean Laplanche, Oublier Freud? Mémoire pour la psychanalyse, Les Pulsions, and Quartiers aux rues sans nom. He co-edited Un-represented States and the Construction of Meaning, with Howard Levine and Gail Reed. He lives in Montreal. 
 
Dorothée Bonnigal-Katz is a psychoanalyst based in London and the West Midlands, UK. She is a leading translator of psychoanalytic theory and philosophy, and has translated Laurence Kahn, Jean Laplanche, Dominique Scarfone, Guy Rosolato, Pierre Legendre, Christopher Bollas, and Miguel de Beistegui, among others.

Text taken from the UIT website