The central argument of On Being Normal and Other Disorders is that psychic identity is acquired through one's primary intersubjective relationships. Thus, the diagnosis of potential pathologies must also be founded on this relation. Given that the efficacy of all forms of treatment depends upon the therapeutic relation, a diagnostic of this sort has wide-ranging applications. The author's critical evaluation of the contemporary DSM-diagnostic shows that the lack of reference to and governing metapsychology impinges on the therapeutic value of the DSM categories. In response to this problem, the author sketches out the foundations of such a metapsychology by combining a Freudo-Lacanian approach with contemporary empirical research. Close attention is paid to the processes of identity acquisition to show how the self and the Other are not two separate entities. Rather, subject formation is seen as a process in which both the subject's and the Other's identity, as well as the relationship between them, comes into being.

Noted Belgian psychoanalyst Paul Verhaeghe shows us what it is about sex that both keeps us moving and inhibits us at the same time. The first essay, The Impossible Couple, is both a humorous and razor-sharp analysis of the contemporary relationship between man and woman. In the second essay, Fleeing Fathers, the author demonstrates that today the Freudian Oedipus complex has disappeared, with a resulting shattering of classic gender roles. Post-modern morals are strange compared to previous morality, because they convey an obligation to enjoy. Things become even stranger when one finds that the expected enjoyment fails to come and, instead of that, we are faced with boredom, anxiety, and anger. The reasons for this are discussed in the third essay, The Drive . Today, sexual abuse is omnipresent, with the male in the role of offender, women and children reduced to his victims. Paul Verhaeghe reconsiders the opposition between Eros and Thanatos as an opposition between two forms of sexual pleasure. The fact that this opposition is ever present in heterosexual love demonstrates that gender differentiation goes beyond temporal cultural forms.Accessibly written and provocatively argued, "Love in a Time of Loneliness" is a polemic whose very informality belies its serious intent. In these three fascinating essays, Professor Verhaeghe leaves the ordinary paths of thinking and sets out to discover what drives us in sex and love."

The first essay, "The Impossible Couple", is both a humorous and razor-sharp analysis of the contemporary relationship between man and woman. In the second essay, "Fleeing Fathers", the author demonstrates that today the Freudian Oedipus complex has disappeared, with a resulting shattering of classic gender roles. Post-modern morals are strange

The central argument of On Being Normal and Other Disorders is that psychic identity is acquired through one's primary intersubjective relationships. Thus, the diagnosis of potential pathologies must also be founded on this relation. Given that the efficacy of all forms of treatment depends upon the therapeutic relation, a diagnostic of