Cottet's book, first published in 1982 and revised in 1996, is a classic of Lacanian psychoanalysis. It is not only a scholarly study of Freud and Lacan, but a thought-provoking introduction to the key issues of Lacanian psychoanalysis.

The Centre for Freudian Analysis and Research Library ,   , Introduction , Introduction to the Second Edition , From the Hysteric to Freud's Desire , Freud's analytic act , Capturing the unconscious , Between two passions: the real and the signifier , On Freud's transference , The case of Freud , The Passion for Origins , Questioning the desire for truth , Truth and certitude , Reaching the real through constructions , Freud's excavations and the archaeologist's desire , Successful paranoia , The Freudian myth , Freudian Ethics , The ethics of desire , Strategy and tactics , The analyst's ideals , Desire and its discontents , The Desire of the Other , The psychoanalyst's action , Socrates's desire , The de-being 1 of the analyst , Conclusion