Free Association Books is an innovative project started in 1980s London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

. It arose as the brainchild of Bob Young

Robert M. Young (academic)

For other people with this name, see Robert Young ----Robert Maxwell Young, usually known as Robert M. Young or Bob Young , is a historian of science specialising in the 19th century and particularly Darwinian thought, a philosopher of the biological and human sciences, and a Kleinian...

 and colleagues, who, disillusioned by the decline of the liberatory movement, began a search using psychoanalysis

Psychoanalysis

Psychoanalysis is a psychological theory developed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries by Austrian neurologist Sigmund Freud. Psychoanalysis has expanded, been criticized and developed in different directions, mostly by some of Freud's former students, such as Alfred Adler and Carl Gustav...

 to understand the problems of liberation. Other key figures involved in the movement were Michael Rustin, Karl Figlio, Barry Richards, Andrew Samuels

Andrew Samuels

Andrew Samuels is known internationally as an influential commentator on political and social themes from the standpoint of 'therapy thinking'. He has worked with politicians, political organizations, activist groups and members of the public in Europe, US, Brazil, Israel, Japan, Russia and South...

, Bob Hinshelwood

R. D. Hinshelwood

Robert D Hinshelwood is Professor of Psychoanalytic Studies at the University of Essex in England. He has written numerous books and papers on the subject of Psychoanalysis, as well as on its history, and has a particular interest in group dynamics....

, Andrew Cooper. It grew quickly into a publishing house which produced well-made books by a new international generation of young psychoanalysts.

Its house journal was Free Associations, which commenced publication in 1984, initially as "Radical Science 15". Its annual conference, "Psychoanalysis and the Public Sphere" ran in conjunction with the University of East London

University of East London

The University of East London is a university located in the London Borough of Newham, East London, England, based at two campuses in Stratford and Docklands areas...

.

Authors who have published with them include Mary Barnes

Mary Barnes

Mary Edith Barnes was an English artist and writer who suffered from schizophrenia but recovered to become a successful painter. She is particularly known for her documentation of her experience at R.D...

, Martin Bernal

Martin Bernal

Martin Gardiner Bernal is a Professor Emeritus of Government and Near Eastern Studies at Cornell University. He is a scholar of modern Chinese political history...

, Janine Chasseguet-Smirgel

Janine Chasseguet-Smirgel

Janine Chasseguet-Smirgel was a leading French psychoanalyst, a training analyst, and past President of the Société psychanalytique de Paris in France. From 1983 to 1989, she was Vice President of the International Psychoanalytical Association...

 (for English translations), Michael Fordham

Michael Fordham

Michael Scott Montague Fordham was an English psychiatrist, a Jungian analyst. The Michael Fordham Prize is named in his honour.-Background and education:...

, André Green

André Green

André Green is a French psychoanalyst of global renown.'Among contemporary practitioners, Andre Green...epitomizes an international spirit of independence'.-Life and career:...

, Donna Haraway

Donna Haraway

Donna J. Haraway is currently a Distinguished Professor Emerita in the History of Consciousness Department at the University of California, Santa Cruz, United States...

, Oliver James

Oliver James

Oliver James is a clinical psychologist, journalist, bestselling book author, and television documentary producer. and presenter He also frequently broadcasts on radio and acts as a pundit on television...

, Ludmilla Jordanova

Ludmilla Jordanova

Ludmilla Jordanova, Fellow RHS is a Professor of Modern History at the King's College London.Educated at Murray Edwards College , Cambridge, Prof. Jordanova has taught at the universities of Oxford, Essex, York, East Anglia and Cambridge...

, Joel Kovel

Joel Kovel

Joel Kovel is an American politician, academic, writer, and eco-socialist. A practicing psychiatrist and psychoanalyst until the mid-1980s, he has lectured in psychiatry, anthropology, political science and communication studies. He has published many books on his work in psychiatry,...

, Michel Odent

Michel Odent

Michel Odent is a retired medical doctor. He was born in France in 1930 and studied medicine at Paris University. He is known for his role in the natural childbirth movement and for promoting water birth...

, Paul Roazen

Paul Roazen

Paul Roazen was a political scientist who became a preeminent historian of psychoanalysis.Roazen studied at Harvard University and in Chicago and Oxford. Later he returned to Harvard. The subject of his dissertation was Freud's political thinking...

 and Eugene Victor Wolfenstein

Eugene Victor Wolfenstein

Eugene Victor Wolfenstein was an American social theorist, practicing psychoanalyst, and a professor of political science at University of California, Los Angeles.-Early life and education:...