Paul Verhaeghe
Paul Verhaeghe

Clinical psychologist and psychoanalyst Paul Verhaeghe (b. 1955) is head of the psychoanalytical department at the University of Ghent. With his books Tussen hysterie en vrouw (Between Hysteria and Woman, 1996) and Over normaliteit en andere afwijkingen (On Being Normal and Other Disorders 2002) he gained international recognition as an expert on Freud and Lacan. He acquired a broad readership with Liefde in tijden van eenzaamheid (Love in Times of Loneliness, 1998, updated 2011) and Het einde van de psychotherapie (The End of Psychotherapy, 2009), while De effecten van een neoliberale meritocratie op identiteit en interpersoonlijke verhoudingen (The Effects on Identity of a Neoliberal Meritocracy) won him a prize for the best essay of 2011 from Liberales. The American edition of On Being Normal and Other Disorders (2002) was awarded the Goethe Prize. His work Identiteit (What About Me? The struggle for identity in a market-based society, 2012) was published in German, English, Korean, Slovenian and Chinese. Autoriteit (Authority, 2015) is an encouraging and much-needed appeal to give a new, modern interpretation to authority.
Recent title – English material
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Autoriteit (Authority), 2015
Press on Authority:
Experience, common sense and audacity: those are the qualities that characterize psychiatrist Paul Verhaeghe, who with Authority once again delivers an urgent message. **** - AD Magazine
The strenght of Authority lies in its breadth. Verhaeghe connects, with apparent ease and in an accessible style, issues in all kinds of areas and at all levels, from poor upbringing [...] to macro-economic developments and the crisis of authority in politics. - **** Leeuwarder Courant
Verhaeghe has an important message. Everyone who is professionally concerned about authority - teachers, doctors and police officers, but above all politicians - should read his book. - Trouw
Press on What About Me?:
Paul Verhaeghe describes how the modern economy perpetrates a merciless selection, thereby forcing people into permanent competition. A settling of accounts with neoliberalism. - Frankfurter Rundschau & Berliner Zeitung
Remarkable. … What About Me? is one of those books that, by making connections between apparently distinct phenomena, permits sudden new insights into what is happening to us and why. – The Guardian
A well-considered and fierce indictment of the rat race we call our lives and the toll it takes on us. – NRC Handelsblad
Titles
- Intimacy , 2018
- Autoriteit (Authority), 2015
- Identiteit (What about Me?), 2012
- Het einde van psychotherapie (The End of Psychotherapy), 2009
- Over normaliteit en andere afwijkingen (On Being Normal and Other Disorders), 2002
- Liefde in tijden van eenzaamheid (Love in a Time of Loneliness), 1998
- Tussen hysterie en vrouw (Between Hysteria and Woman), 1996