Piera Aulagnier was a French Psychoanalyst in private practice, and a prominent member of the International Psychoanalytic Association. She died in 1991.

"...the single most important contribution to the psychoanalytic understanding of psychosis published during the last twenty years..."- Otto F. Kernberg, President International Psychoanalytical Association"Aulagnier's book is considered a masterpiece in the French Psychoanalytic Community."- Dr Francis Baudry"This book is remarkable for its depth and originality"- André Lussier

• Foreword by Harold Blum. Translators Note. Preface. Part I: From Pictogram to Statement. The Activity of Representation, it's Objects and It's Aim. General General Considerations. The State of Encounter and the Concept of Violence. The Primal Process and the Pictogram. The Postulate of Self-procreation. The Conditions Necessary for the Represntability of the Encounter. The Borrowing Made From the Senory Model by the Activity of the Primal. Pictogram and Specularisation. Pictogram and Erogenous Pleasure. The Re-production of the Same. Concerning the Activity of Thinking. The Concept of the Primal: Conclusions. The Fantasy Representaion of the Primary Process: Thing-presentation and Word-presentation. Thing-presentation and Body Fantasisation. Fantasy Representation and the Unconscious. The Postulate of the Primary and the Economic Principle that Results From it. The Prototypes of the Secondary. The Appearance of Word-presentation and the Changes that it Imposes on the Activity of the Primary. The System of Primary Meanings. The Pleasure of Hearing. From Desire to Hear to the Desire to Understand. Concerning the Perscuting Object. Signs and the Language of the Primary. Science and the Discourse of Others. The Space Where the I Can Come About. The Organisation of the Space Where the I Must Come About. The 'Word-bearer'. The Violence of Anticipation (the spoken shadow). The Effect of Repression and its Transmission. Conjunction and Syntax of A Desire. The Violence of Interpretation: the Risk of Excess. The Reduplication of Violence: the Basic Language. The Deferred Action of the Naming of the Affect. The Desire of the Father (for a Child, for that Child). The Encounter with the Father. The Narcissistic Contract. The I and the Conjugation of the Future: Concerning the Identificatory Project and the Splitting of the I Annex: What I Mean by the Concepts of Symbolic and Imaginary. Part II: The Interpretation of Violence and Primary Delusional Thinking. Concerning Schizophrenia: the Potential for Psychosis and Primary Delusional Thinking. Schizophrenia, Paranoia, Primary Delusional Thinking: General Considerations. The Space in Which Schizophrenia Can Come About. The Failure of Repression in the Mother's Discourse. Excessive Violence : The Appropriation by the Mother of the Child's Activity of Thinking. Forbidden Knowledge and Delusional Theories Concerning Origins. The Story of Mme B and Primary Delusional Theory Concerning Origins. The Necessary Factor for Psychotic Potentiality to Remain Such. The Historical Reality and the Effect of Reduplication. Concerning Paranoia: Primal Scene and Primary Delusional Thinking. The Fantasy of the Primal Scene and Infantile Sexual Theories. The Conditions Necessary for Fantasy Reelaboration. The 'heard' Scene and its representation in Paranoia. Accounts Heard. The 'Family Portrait': Failed Idealisation and the Appeal to the Persecutor. What the Child 'hears' and the 'Delusional Theory Concerning Origins'. The Theses Defended in the Trial to the Persecutor. M.R's Story. By Way of Conclusion: the Three Ordeals that Delusional Thinking Re-shapes.