Christopher Bollas is a psychoanalyst and Fellow of the British Psychoanalytical Society and the Los Angeles Institute and Society for Psychoanalytical Studies.

‘Psychoanalysis doesn’t need masters – and yet, by any reckoning, Christopher Bollas is among the most brilliant psychoanalysts of his generation. He is also one of the most inventive, and the publication of his Notebooks is a significant event. Many of the ideas in these volumes will be familiar to Bollas’s wide international readership, many more will not. It takes time and requires close reading to discover the recuring patterns of meaning in this extensive collection of what were originally intended as private notes. The pleasure of discovery is sustained by the often-involuntary layering of associations, resemblances, and allusions. Gradually, as the process of thinking is repeatedly caught in the act of writing, the architecture of Bollas’s thought begins to take shape, affording the reader a valuable insight into the inner workings of an eminent psychoanalytic practitioner.’

• ContentsPrefaceBrief HistoryAcknowledgementsNote to the readerCharacter: The Language of the Self The Notebooks 1974–1990EndnotesIndex

Christopher Bollas is a psychoanalyst and Fellow of the British Psychoanalytical Society and the Los Angeles Institute and Society for Psychoanalytical Studies.

‘Psychoanalysis doesn’t need masters – and yet, by any reckoning, Christopher Bollas is among the most brilliant psychoanalysts of his generation. He is also one of the most inventive, and the publication of his Notebooks is a significant event. Many of the ideas in these volumes will be familiar to Bollas’s wide international readership, many more will not. It takes time and requires close reading to discover the recuring patterns of meaning in this extensive collection of what were originally intended as private notes. The pleasure of discovery is sustained by the often-involuntary layering of associations, resemblances, and allusions. Gradually, as the process of thinking is repeatedly caught in the act of writing, the architecture of Bollas’s thought begins to take shape, affording the reader a valuable insight into the inner workings of an eminent psychoanalytic practitioner.’

• ContentsPrefaceBrief HistoryAcknowledgementsNote to the readerCharacter: The Language of the Self The Notebooks 1974–1990EndnotesIndex

Christopher Bollas is a psychoanalyst and Fellow of the British Psychoanalytical Society and the Los Angeles Institute and Society for Psychoanalytical Studies.

‘Psychoanalysis doesn’t need masters – and yet, by any reckoning, Christopher Bollas is among the most brilliant psychoanalysts of his generation. He is also one of the most inventive, and the publication of his Notebooks is a significant event. Many of the ideas in these volumes will be familiar to Bollas’s wide international readership, many more will not. It takes time and requires close reading to discover the recuring patterns of meaning in this extensive collection of what were originally intended as private notes. The pleasure of discovery is sustained by the often-involuntary layering of associations, resemblances, and allusions. Gradually, as the process of thinking is repeatedly caught in the act of writing, the architecture of Bollas’s thought begins to take shape, affording the reader a valuable insight into the inner workings of an eminent psychoanalytic practitioner.’

• ContentsPrefaceBrief HistoryAcknowledgementsNote to the readerCharacter: The Language of the Self The Notebooks 1974–1990EndnotesIndex