The Weary Sons of Freud lambasts mainstream psychoanalysis for its failure to grapple with pressing political and social matters pertinent to its patients' condition. Gifted with insight and compelled by fury, Catherine Cl ment contrasts the original, inspirational psychoanalytical work of Freud and Lacan to the obsessive imitations of their uninspired followers-the weary sons of Freud.

The analyst's once attentive ear has become deaf to the broader questions of therapeutic practice. Clement asks whether the perspective of socialism, brought to this study by a woman who is herself an analysand, can fill the gap. She reflects on her own history, as well as on that of psychoanalysis and the French left, to show what an activist and feminist restoration of the talking cure might look like.

Catherine Cl ment is a prominent French philosopher, novelist, feminist, and literary critic. After studying at the cole normale sup rieure under Claude L vi-Strauss and Jacques Lacan, she became a leading member of the school of French feminism and criture f minine. She is a widely read novelist and has collaborated with thinkers such as H l ne Cixous and Julia Kristeva.