neurosis
neurosis

We are all mad…..

….to paraphrase Lacan (and, indirectly) Freud.  In some ways this seems to be saying nothing new; after all, isn’t part of Freud’s legacy, whether you subscribe to psychoanalysis or not, that we are all, in some way, disturbed?  And doesn’t this mean that we are all either neurotic to some …

Private madness

On Private Madness is a collection of papers by the French psychoanalyst André Green. 1 In his introduction to the book, Green writes: Freud already knew that the boundaries between neurosis and normality are barely discernable.  Following him, we have learned that many persons who are well adapted to social and …

On being mad

The recent court ruling on Anders Breivik1 highlights a number of important issues relating to the nature of madness.  The judges found that he was sane at the time he carried out the bombing of the government buildings in Olso and the subsequent shootings on Utoeya island.  In other words …