nIn 1997, the Presses Universitaires de France commissioned Dominiquen nScarfone for another book for their series Psychanalystes d'aujourd'hui. Then nresult was Jean Laplanche, now available in Dorothée Bonnigal-Katz'sn nbrilliantly clear English translation as Laplanche: an introduction. More thann nan overview of Laplanche's career, Scarfone's text presents an unparalleledn ninsight into the mechanisms, provocations, and spectacular theoreticaln nachievements of Laplanche's work, which has been increasingly recognizedn nas integral to Francophone-and more recently, Anglophone-psychoanalyticn npractice and theory.n n nn nThis volume brings together Scarfone's book with two representative worksn nof Laplanche's writing: his introduction to the French translation of Freud'sn nBeyond the Pleasure Principle, perhaps the last major work completed beforen nhis death in 2012; and Fantasme Originaire, Fantasmes des Origines, Originesn ndu Fantasme, the classic 1964 essay written in collaboration with J.-B.n nPontalis, in a new translation by Jonathan House.

Finally, this volume includesn na complete bibliography of Laplanche's work, in English and in French.n n nn nJean Laplanche was described by Radical Philosophy as the most originaln nand philosophically informed psychoanalytic theorist of his day. Studyingn nphilosophy under Hyppolite, Bachelard, and Merleau-Ponty, he became ann nactive member of the French Resistance under the Vichy regime. Under then ninfluence (and treatment) of Jacques Lacan, Laplanche came to earn an ndoctorate in medicine and was certified as a psychoanalyst.

He eventuallyn nbroke ties with Lacan and began regularly publishing influential contributionsn nto psychoanalytic theory, his first volume appearing in 1961. In 1967 hen npublished, with his colleague J.-B. Pontalis, the celebrated encyclopaedia Then nLanguage of Psychoanalysis.

Member of the International Psychoanalyticn nAssociation, co-founder of the Association Psychanalytique de France, n nemeritus professor and founder of the Center for Psychoanalytic Research atn nthe Université de Paris VII, and assistant professor at the Sorbonne, he alson noversaw, as scientific director, the translation of Freud's complete oeuvre inton nFrench for the Presses Universitaires de France.n