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Vocabulaire de la [[psychanalyse ]] (The [[Language ]] of [[Psycho]]-[[Analysis]]) is neither a [[dictionary ]] nor an encyclopedia, but an inventory of the major [[concepts ]] of [[psychoanalysis]]. Cursory readers might confine themselves to the brief definitions that precede the historical discussions of concepts. However, the most important [[work ]] presented in this book is its analysis of the tools of [[psychoanalytic ]] [[thinking]]: a methodical and thoroughgoing investigation ever ready to track down contradictions. Basing this book almost exclusively on the work of [[Freud]], Laplanche and Pontalis set out to bring the concepts of psychoanalysis to [[life]], showing their complexity and tracing their [[development ]] through Freud's writings. By hewing close to Freud's [[texts]], often retranslated into [[French ]] by the authors, the Vocabulaire makes it possible to put these concepts to work, as it were, while steering clear of dogmatism.

The fortunate encounters and circumstances that gave [[birth ]] to the Vocabulaire are worth recalling. The two authors became friends as soon as they arrived in [[Paris ]] in 1941 to take preparatory classes in the humanities at the Lycée Henri IV. They both were candidates for the advanced teacher-qualifying examinations (concours d'agrégation) in [[philosophy]], and both were successful. Thereafter Pontalis proceeded into [[university ]] teaching, while Laplanche turned to [[medicine]]. Ten years later, when Pontalis was a research assistant at the Centre national de la recherche scientifique (National Center for [[Scientific ]] Research) and Laplanche was an assistant professor at the Sorbonne, both found themselves under the [[authority ]] of [[Daniel Lagache]], university professor and series editor at the Presses universitaires de [[France]]. At that [[time ]] Lagache, at the [[request ]] of UNESCO, was organizing a large group of researchers to produce a dictionary of [[terms ]] used in the [[human ]] [[sciences]]. This [[project ]] came to naught, but Lagache, aware of Laplanche and Pontalis's interest in psychoanalysis, proposed that they write what became the Vocabulaire de la psychanalyse.

The two worked on the book from 1960 to 1967. They met several [[times ]] a week to review their [[reading ]] on one or more concepts. After [[discussion]], they wrote in such close collaboration that the thinking of the two men was inextricably linked. From time to time they would show their work to Lagache, who granted [[them ]] [[complete ]] authorial independence. The work was published under his editorship, and he contributed a preface giving the background and [[history ]] of the project.

While the book was [[being ]] written, Jacques [[Lacan ]] was urging a "[[return ]] to Freud." Laplanche and Pontalis accepted this proposal and, instead of simply elaborating a set of concepts, treated their task as a [[full]]-scale research project. During this period the [[Association ]] psychanalytique de France (French Psychoanalytic Association) came into being (1963). Lagache, Laplanche, and Pontalis all became members, marking their distance from Lacan.

The first edition of the Vocabulaire appeared in 1967. Thirteen more were to follow. The book was first translated into [[English]], under the title [[The Language of Psycho-Analysis]], thanks to the collaboration and [[friendship ]] between Masud Khan and Pontalis. That English-language readers should thus obtain access to a French work of this kind was considered extraordinary at the time. Subsequently the book was translated into Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Hungarian, Russian, Rumanian, Croat, [[German]], Japanese, [[Polish]], Greek, Arabic, Korean, Slovakian, Swedish, and Turkish—seventeen [[languages ]] in all. In 1997, thirty years after its first appearence, the Vocabulaire was issued in a student's edition, which gave it a much wider [[circulation]]. It is undoubtedly the most frequently cited work in the entire French psychoanalytic [[literature]].

The authors' [[choice ]] of concepts for inclusion focused on those notions that [[help ]] explain Freud's [[theory ]] of the [[mental ]] [[apparatus]]. Almost all of the [[three ]] hundred terms dealt with were taken from Freud's work. The exceptions included a few [[Kleinian ]] notions ([[good]]/bad [[object]], depressive [[position]], [[paranoid ]] position), a few [[Lacanian ]] concepts ([[foreclosure]], the [[symbolic]], [[mirror ]] [[phase]]), a Jungian one (Electra [[complex]]), an Adlerian one ([[inferiority ]] complex), Spitz's hospitalism, and [[Winnicott]]'s [[transitional object]]. A three-tier [[system ]] of cross-references among entries and to the [[bibliography ]] encouraged readers to view topics from a succession of different angles.

Some of Laplanche and Pontalis's lengthier entries, such as "Ego" and "[[Death ]] [[instinct]]" set forth their own [[theoretical ]] positions. As to theoretical orientation, apart from adhering as closely as possible to Freud's work itself, they rejected ego [[psychology]], for example, and expressed reservations [[about ]] the theoretical approaches of [[Jacques Lacan ]] and Melanie [[Klein]]. The Vocabulaire initiated the development of a [[number ]] of notions not thoroughly conceptualized by Freud, among them deferred [[action ]] and [[anaclisis]], which would later constitute important milestones in the thinking of [[Jean Laplanche]].

See also: [[Association psychanalytique de France]]; France; Great [[Britain]]; Lagache, Daniel.