Jacques Lacan is probably the most influential psychoanalyst since Freud (of the roughly 20,000 psychoanalysts in the world, about half are ‘Lacanians’) yet most people know nothing about him. The 10,000 analysts who use Lacan’s ideas, work mostly in France, Spain, Italy, and South America. To the rest of the world, including England and America, Lacan is a genius-in-waiting, due to be ‘discovered’ any day now.

Despite (or because of) his brilliance, Lacan is incredibly difficult to understand. He wrote with an obscure, almost impenetrable style that casually refers to philosophy, linguistics, mathematics, etc.–and to make matters worse, his ideas changed over the years. (At this point, any rational person must be wondering, ‘What good is Lacan’s brilliance if I can’t understand his ideas?’)

Lacan For Beginners by Philip Hill addresses that question with great clarity without oversimplifying Lacan’s ideas. Hill introduces the reader to Lacan’s theories and their relation to clinical practice in twelve elegantly structured chapters, designed around tantalizing questions that serve to clarify Lacan’s ideas.

Lacan For Beginners is written with clarity, insight, and wit and illustrated with examples from popular culture and cinema. The artwork is humorous and informative, and works with the text. So don’t you think it is about time you become familiar with his work?