Neurosis

Neurosis, is a structure based on the mechanism (repression), as Freud said "Repression is the cornerstone of psychoanalysis". So, psychoanalysis itself is based on Freudian realisation of this structure. Repression of the signifier is the repression of the law, an anchoring structure of language within subjectivity, or more precisely the emergent aspect of subjectivity, neurotic subjectivity emerges because of repression. Meaning is prohibited for the neurotic because the law was repressed, a law that splits the signifier and the signified. While repression is what holds the split in place and holds the neurotic anchored in the symbolic order, it at the same time tortures the neurotic with the prohibition. A neurotic solution is the fantasy, scenarios and possibilities are actualized in the fantasy but hardly in reality. On the other side of neurosis, on the other side of meaning, is psychosis, within psychosis meaning is accentuated to the next level, for the psychotic meaning is everywhere because the mechanism of repression is not inscribed and there is no split between the signifier and the signified. While the psychotic is invaded with meaning and the possibility of hearing voices or seeing schizophrenic delusions because the prohibition of the father is missing, a neurotic is locked in the structure of prohibition, fatherly prohibition is torturing neurotic structure. Prohibition is sexual in its nature because what is prohibited by the father is the incestuous relationship between the mother and the child, incest taboo is coded into our minds since a very early age. Feelings of guilt are the natural consequence of the prohibition and neurosis is built on the prohibition. The connection between the two (prohibition and guilt) is inscribed into the mechanism of enjoyment within the neurotic structure. A common symptom of neurosis is feelings of guilt during or after sex, particularly after an orgasm. The feeling of guilt has been inscribed into the psyche since the original prohibition by the father, the original sexual relation was between the mother and the child, and the first sexual object for the child is the mother. Neurosis is the consequence of the original prohibition of incest entangled with signifiers which are the structural pillars of language, this entanglement of prohibition, guilt and language is repressed and this repressed structure becomes a motor force of a human psyche. Because the first sexual relationship is between the child and the mother, all the other sexual relationships in the future are based on the same fantasmatic principle. In an ordinary heterosexual relationship, a man's sexual partner is a woman which becomes a sexual object for the man. Because the first sexual object for the child was his mother, the same feelings of guilt are transferred towards the sexual partner of the opposite sex, or a same-sex partner within different relationship dynamics. The sexual object is fantasmatic, sexual relation happens within the fantasy of a man and because his first object was his mother with whom the relationship was prohibited, the fantasmatic structure keeps the derivate from the original prohibition as part of the fantasmatic structure. Feelings of guilt repeat after an orgasm because the sexual object is fantasmatic, a woman embodies the fantasmatic object for a man and the original object (the mother) was originally prohibited by the father. This is the structure which keeps sanity (neurosis) in place, without the prohibition of incest, insanity (psychosis) appears as the primary functionary mechanism of subjectivity. The unconscious is inscribed into the child through the prohibition of incest, which allows the child to create a place for a separate being of its own. Popular culture made psychoanalysis into an everyday discourse where such matters are taken lightly and fantasmatic structure is not taken seriously at all, and incestuous fantasies are taken as an old joke of Freud who was obsessed with sexuality. In everyday reality, our relationships, especially intimate, sexual relationships are structured around our original relationship with our caregivers. On a deeper level of analysis, your whole life might be pure luck or non-luck because of what type of relationship you had with your caregivers. A discussion of such matters for the most part is only possible within the therapeutic relationship, while everyday relationships do not provide the freedom of thought, that the therapeutic relationships between the analyst and analysand do provide. Human subjectivity is a complex system built on prohibitions, language and compensatory fantasmatic mechanisms brought into the present moment from childhood. The complexity of the psyche is so vast that it takes a period of quite a few years for subjects who participate in analysis to untangle the spiderweb of the unconscious in order to understand the fantasmatic scenarios that are unconsciously running in the background, dictating the present structure of reality.
In my own experience within the University, Freud was portrayed as numbnuts who without any empirical evidence was talking about weird anal drives and some stages of sexual development. Psychoanalytic theory in general was just "another theory" besides all the other theories, that were based on the brain, biology or genetics. Meanwhile, the truth is lost within our own subjectivities, lost within the structural matrix of it. Freud should be given a thumbs up for finding a rational way to understand the human psyche. Analysts who participated in the analysis in order to explore and understand their psyches, so they can go help others, to come to their realisations, after their own analysis is finished, deserved a thumbs up as well. Exploration of the inner structures of our biographical past, our relationships with our parents and intimate relationships of the past and the present, seems to be a component, which helps to produce "good fruits of thought", fruits based on rationality and the open question towards a deeper comprehension of things. As if within the present society, subjects who perceive reality through neurotic structure and subjects who perceive reality through psychotic structure, diverged in different directions. Jacques Lacan was one of the psychoanalysts who explored psychoanalytic questions and with interesting twists of logic, poetry, structures of language, art and knowledge, managed to extrapolate and communicate these subjects for the wider public. Books written by present-day psychoanalysts and philosophers who in one way or another followed the psychoanalytic tradition led by Jacques Lacan after Freud, managed to explain these matters using the terminology that is understandable to any individual. These matters, show us, some sort of collective removal of neurosis, as if repression is being collectively lifted, which produced positive and negative consequences within society. A psychoanalytic Fatherly law is being lifted, repression is ceasing to operate collectively and societal psychic structure is morphing into a new structure, in line with the present structure of capitalism, which in order to stay operational, has to morph into a new system. The question is: "Is this a new enlightenment era?" or "Are we losing our bearings because there is too much information these days?" and that information is translated into knowledge by anybody. For example, I, writing this text at the moment. Every "I" constructs reality through its own fantasy structure and the divergence between the neurotic, psychotic or perverse fantasies, produces very different results.
Let's look at the Lacanian literature for more insights on neurosis and psychoanalysis. In his book "A Clinical Introduction to Lacanian Psychoanalysis, Theory and Technique" Bruce Fink wrote: "Neurosis can, of course, be characterized in many ways. In contradistinction to psychosis, it implies the instating of the paternal function, the assimilation of the essential structure of language, the primacy of doubt over certainty, considerable inhibition of the drives as opposed to their uninhibited enactment, the tendency to find more pleasure in fantasy than in direct sexual contact, the mechanism of repression as opposed to foreclosure, the return of the repressed from within, as it were, in the form of Freudian slips, bungled actions, and symptoms - the list goes on and on. Unlike perversion, neurosis involves the predominance of the genital zone over the other erogenous zones, a certain degree of uncertainty about what it is that turns one on, considerable difficulty pursuing it even when one does know, the refusal to be the cause of Other's jouissance and so on." (Fink, 1997, p. 112). Bruce summarises the structure of neurosis well. An interesting aspect worth a discussion is "the primacy of doubt over certainty". Within the Lacanian psychoanalytic theory, "lack", is fundamental and the duality of "doubt and certainty" is connected to the essential aspect of Lacan's theory of lack. Inscription of lack within the subject is achieved through symbolic castration. A symbolically castrated structure is a neurotic structure, a symbolically castrated child is a neurotic child, a being with an operational unconscious. Conversely, a non-castrated structure is a psychotic structure, and a non-castrated child is a psychotic child. A psychotic subject is a being without lack, a non-lacking being, and a being without an operational unconscious. Doubt and certainty are the two sides of symbolic castration, either operational or non-operational. On the side of the operational symbolic castration (neurosis), lack is inscribed in the subject and that phallic inscription of lack erects a wall. A wall that separates the signifier and the signified, a wall that separates the word and the meaning of that word. Because of the inscribed lack, the subject cannot be fully certain of things, a structure can be based on certainty only when the "doubt of lack" is not inscribed. Once something happens, that makes you "back off", you naturally start doubting yourself a little bit more than prior to the accident. If you get into a couple of car crashes, naturally, if you are neurotic, you might start questioning your driving capabilities and it would be a completely normal reaction. Your questioning of your own driving skills after the accident would be based on the fact that you know that you are a lacking being (knowingly or not-knowingly neurotic) and there is a possibility that you might benefit from remembering certain procedures and rules of driving. Conversely, on the psychotic side of the structure, such thoughts might not enter the picture of the psyche at all. And even if such thoughts would appear, rejection of those thoughts might be more easily comprehended for the psychotic, than for the neurotic. Knowing how the psychotic structure is mainly based on the "Imaginary" order within the Lacanian clinic, car accidents could completely devastate the psychotic subject and turn on the imaginary operation, which would be predominantly based on paranoiac scenarios. Because the lack is not inscribed in the psychotic structure, a psychotic subject might imagine that there is a conspiracy against the subject and people are trying to kill him and that is the reason why those car accidents happened in the first place. Someone is after the subject, someone is trying to kill him and those "evil others" sent the people "the other drivers that were involved in the car accident" to hurt the subject. Such paranoiac scenarios would accentuate the aspect of "certainty", certainty of the reality of the paranoiac scenario, as mentioned by Bruce Fink earlier "Certainty over doubt". Conversely, on the side of the neurotic structure, because lack was inscribed, a neurotic subject could acknowledge his own lack and agree to the fact that "he might need to start driving more carefully" or "join the supplementary driving course, in order to refine and enhance his or her driving skills". Lacanian system, concentrated around the subject's relationship to the signifier gives us a symbolic road map, through which the underlying structures of the psyche become more easily visible. Jacques Lacan said that the psychotic is not only the beggar who thinks that he is a king, but the king who thinks that he is the king. Lacan describes the non-operational prohibition, full identification with an image. As if there is no gap between the person and the person's identity. Within psychosis, the person and the identity of the person are unified, without the gap in between the image of the person and the actual person and that gap is the gap of lack. Within the Lacanian example, "the psychotic is not only the beggar who thinks that he is a king, but the king who thinks that he is the king". The king is psychotic because between "the person of the king" and "the symbolic identity of the king" there is no gap, the king fully identifies with being a king. But, as we all know, the emperor wears no clothes, we are all naked, wearing the garments of symbolic identity, but the king does not know that, he is certain of his "kingness". On the other hand "the beggar who thinks that he is a king", might be a rational/neurotic beggar or irrational/psychotic beggar. The rational/neurotic beggar, "thinking/fantasising" that he is a king, if using his fantasy as an operational system which compensates for his "beggarness and poorness" by creating the scenario in which the beggar is the king, is completely understandable and viable. Aren't we all sometimes fantasise about a new car, a new job, a new relationship, a new city, a new political system, world peace, a better body, or nicer teeth, fantasy functions as a frame which compensates for the inscribed lack with which we all (neurotics) have to live with. An irrational/psychotic beggar would be the beggar who fully identifies with his compensatory fantasy or the fantasy in general. If within the confines of reality the beggar is a beggar, but in his fantasy, he identifies as "a king" and wants to be treated as "a king" within the social situations which involve other subjects, the beggar has lost his bearings. It's as if rationality is on the side of doubt, on the side where lack is in operation the split of the subject has taken an effect. Conversely, irrationality is on the side of certainty, whereas lack is non-operational and the split of the subject has not taken place.
The so-called "Preliminary sessions" within the Lacanian system, at the beginning of the analysis, are particularly concentrated on determining the structural position of the subject, so the analyst could correctly position himself within the transferential relationship with the patient. The patient's structural relationship to language is the psychic structure, which will be particularly interesting to the analyst.
Back to Fink's text "A Clinical Introduction to Lacanian Psychoanalysis, Theory and Technique", he writes "The fundamental mechanism that defines neurosis is repression. Repression is responsible for the fact that, whereas the psychotic may reveal all of his or her "dirty laundry" with no apparent difficulty, airing all of the scabrous feelings and deeds anyone else would be ashamed to divulge, the neurotic keeps such things hidden from view, from others and from him or herself. Lacan expresses the psychotic's situation by saying that his or her unconscious is exposed for all the world to see. Indeed, in a certain sense there is no unconscious in psychosis, since the unconscious is the result of repression" (Fink, 1997, p. 113).

It is interesting to think about the fact that the neurotic is the one that has an unconscious and the psychotic does not. This leads back to the triangular situation of the oedipal drama (Mommy, Daddy, Baby - Triangle).

Hysteria and Obsession

The interesting aspect within the psychoanalytic perspective of psychic structures is the split of Neurosis into the categories of Hysteria and Obsessions. A Freudian distinction between Hysteria and Obsession was formulated in relation to people's reaction to early (primal) sexual experiences (Freud, 1896; Fink, 1997). Fink describes it as "one of the most striking of the definitions he proposes is that obsessives react to guilt and aversion, whereas hysterics react with disgust or revulsion" (Fink, 1997, p. 117). The Lacanian structural twist allows us to argue that psychoanalytic categorization allows a profound definition, particularly within the structural level, Lacan provides the definitions of obsession and hysteria that Freud did not offer (Fink, 1997). Fink describes the difference between hysteria and obsession in terms of the fundamental fantasy thus "The structure of the fundamental fantasy in hysteria is, however, radically different from that found in obsession. Most simply stated, the obsessive's fantasy implies a relationship with an object, but the obsessive refuses to recognize that this object is related to the Other. Though the object always arises, according to Lacan, as that which falls away or is lost when the subject separates from the Other, the obsessive refuses to acknowledge any affinity between the object and the Other" (Fink, 1997, p. 118), it's as if Hysteria could be encompassed in the description of "Unsatisfied Desire", while the Obsessional neurosis could be encompassed in the description "Impossible Desire". Further Fink provides a brilliant diagram, which shows the possible structural map of hysteria and obsession in relation to being.

Hysteria Obsession

Question - "Am I a man or a woman?" "Am I dead or alive?"

Status of desire - Unsatisfied Impossible

Stance toward sexuality - Revulsion Guilt

Primary zone - Oral Anal

Strategy with respect - Being the cause of Being in thinking

to being the Other's desire

Strategy for overcoming - Complete the Other Complete the

separation subject

Fundamental fantasy - (a<>barred/A) (S<>a)

Further Fink writes "Since repression is the main mechanism in neurosis, repression must lead to different results in the different cases. If repression means that the subject becomes split into conscious and unconscious (that is.ego and subject) at a certain moment - not necessarily chronometrically definable - the split must occur somewhat differently in obsession and hysteria (the obsessive and the hysteric are "alienated" differently). Since it is signifiers that are repressed, differential splitting implies that the hysteric and the obsessive have different relations to language, and different relations to knowledge." (Fink, 1997, p. 162). It makes you ask yourself, why the split differs and why the structure of neurosis ends up based on either guilt or revulsion, why one person comes to negate "the Other" and another person does not. Further Fink engages in the explanation of Freud's thought in relation to these matters thus: "Freud, with his well-known dictum "Anatomy is destiny", seems to suggest that it all depends on whether one has a penis or not: when you have it you cannot be it (that is, be the phallic object of desire for the Other); when you do not, you can embody it for the Other. Lacan repeats such Freudian formulations in his early work (for instance, "Intervention on Transference" from 1951), but problematizes such a schematization in his later work. His later discussions - revolving around the fact that Western culture there is no signifier for Woman, whereas the phallus is the signifier for Man - take us further into the dialectic between anatomy and language, where biology does not have the last word." (Fink, 1997, p. 162). In his seminar XX Encore (The Limits of Love and Knowledge), Lacan says "That is what analytic discourse demonstrates in that, to one of these beings qua sexed, to man insofar as he is endowed with the organ said to be phallic - I said, "said to be" - the corporal sex or sexual organ of woman - I said, "of woman," whereas in fact woman does not exist, woman is not whole - woman's sexual organ is of no interest except via the body's jouissance. Analytic discourse demonstrates - allow me to put it this way - that the phallus is the conscientious objection made by one of the two sexed beings to the service to be rendered to the other" (Lacan, 1972, p. 7). Further Fink writes "Lacan would not, I suspect, have considered these structures to be universal; rather. he would have seen them as dependent on a certain typically Western organization of society wherein the phallus is the predominant signifier of desire. All efforts to change women's and men's roles notwithstanding, as long as the phallus remains the signifier of desire, these different structures seem unlikely to disappear" (Fink, 1997, p. 162).

Being in Thought (Obsession) versus Being the Cause (Hysteria)

Bruce Fink explains this structural Neurotic split between Obsession and Hysteria in Lacanian terms in relation to the fundamental question involved in neurosis as the question of "being": "What am I?" (Fink, 1997). The child's investigation of its parent's desire (the Other's desire): "Why did they have me? What do they want from me?" These questions determine the structural location of the "child" within the field of the "parents" desire (Fink, 1997). Children raise these questions to their parents but the answers of the parents are rarely convincing (Mommy and Daddy loved each other very much, and then you came along...). The child is left to ponder these questions as to "why" and wherefore of its existence via the inconsistencies in its parents' discourse and deeds (Fink, 1997). The answers for the child are provided in the fundamental fantasy, which is the fantasy running in the background of the psyche, a fantasy that covers the structural hole of subjectivity, a hole in the place where the connection between the mother and the child was split by the phallic signification. That hole opens up as the question of our being, a being, which is fully dependent on the "Others" desire. Further, Bruce writes "The obsessive and the hysteric come to grips with the question of being in different ways, for the question is modulated differently in hysteria and obsession. The hysteric's primary question related to being is "Am I a man or a woman?" whereas the obsessive's is "Am I dead or alive?". The obsessive is convinced that he is, that he exists, only when he is consciously thinking. Should he lapse into fantasy or musing, or stop thinking altogether, for instance during orgasm, he loses any conviction of being. His attempt to come into being or continue to be involves the conscious, thinking subject - the ego - not the divided subject who is unaware of certain of his own thoughts and desires. He believes himself to be master of his own fate (Fink, 1997, p. 122).

"The obsessive, as conscious thinker, deliberately ignores the unconscious - that foreign discourse within us, that discourse we do not and cannot control which takes advantage of the ambiguities and multiple meanings of words in our mother tongue to make us say the opposite of what we consciously meant, and do the opposite of what we consciously intended to do. The obsessive cannot stand the idea of sharing his mouthpiece with that foreign voice, and does his best to keep it down or at least out of earshot. He acts as if it did not exist, all proofs to the contrary notwithstanding. In the classroom, the obsessive is the student who refuses to accept the idea of the unconscious in the first place, affirming that slips of the tongue have no meaning, that he is aware of all his thoughts, and that he does not need anyone else to help him become aware of them. If he comes to change his mind, he does so grudgingly and only when he sees a prospect of remaining at the level of psychoanalytic theory alone (Fink, 1997, p. 122). The obsessive existence seems to function within thinking, but, thinking only within the realm of the conscious thought. (Non-bared subject) in Lacanian terms, as a subject that is not split, or more precisely, a subject which rejects his own split, which rejects his own lack. Whereas in psychosis "the existence of lack" is not even acknowledged, within obsessional neurosis, lack is constantly rejected, and "impossible desire" is what holds lack at its distance. Further, Fink writes "The obsessive thus views himself as a whole subject (designated by the letter S without a bar through it), not as someone who is often unsure of what he is saying or what he wants - in other words, not as someone subject to lack. He fiercely refuses to see himself as dependent on the Other, attempting to maintain a fantasmatic relationship with a cause of desire that is dependent on no one - hence his predilection for masturbation, in which no other person is involved. The obsessive is complete unto himself. In this sense, we can even remove the bar on the subject in his fantasy, rewriting it as (S<>a). Hence also his predilection, if he is sexually involved with others, to equate them all as contingent "containers" or "media" of object a: each partner is fungible or exchangeable for any other. He is led to annihilate any actual partner, ensuring that he or she not become an elective cause of sexual excitement. Instead, the human partner is often transformed in his mind into a mother figure - a provider of maternal love and a proper object of filial devotion. This is related to what Freud calls the "debasement in the sphere of love", wherein the obsessive creates two classes of women: the Madonna and the whore, the mother figure who can be loved and adored versus the exciting woman who embodies object a, who cannot be transformed into a maternal love object" (Fink, 1997, p. 123). The structure speaks for itself, these structural psychoanalytic definitions through which the functioning of the individual psyche could be understood are brilliant signposts for the clinicians. On the other side of the argument, after being in analysis for long enough, especially if an individual who is participating in the analysis is interested in psychoanalytic theory himself or herself, will inevitably notice that his or her psychic functioning lands in one of the structural definitions in particular. If a popular saying "A successful person thinks he is not working hard enough, while the lazy person thinks that he works too much" would be placed within the psychoanalytic structure, a successful person who thinks he is not working hard enough, would be the perfect fit within the structure of obsessional neurosis. In relation to hysteria, which is the other side of the split between obsession/hysteria Bruce Fink writes thus "The hysteric, on the other hand, emphasizes the partner or Other, making herself into the object of the Other's desire so as to master it. The Other is the desiring subject in the hysteric's fantasy - usually a partner (lover or spouse) who desires when and how the hysteric as object sees fit. Indeed, the hysteric orchestrates things in such a way as to ensure that the Other's desire remains unsatisfied, leaving the hysteric a permanent role as object. The Other as desiring subject here is but a puppet: it is the Other whose desire is kept unsatisfied by the hysteric in order for the hysteric to be able to maintain her role as desired object, as desire's lack. We shall see that hysteric is also characterized by the better-known "desire for an unsatisfied desire" of her own; Lacan goes so far as to define the hysteric's stance by saying that hysteria is characterized by an unsatisfied desire" (Fink, 1997, p. 123).

Unsatisfied Desire (Hysteria) versus Impossible Desire (Obsession)

In this chapter of his book "A Clinical Introduction to Lacanian Psychoanalysis Theory and Technique" Bruce Fink describes the obsessive as being characterized by an impossible desire. Fink borrows an example in order to illustrate an obsessive case from Collete Sole, a psychoanalyst and the author of multiple books, to name a few: "What Lacan Said about Women?" "Lacan - The Unconscious Reinvented" and many others, Bruce writes thus "An obsessive man meets a woman who attracts him greatly, seduces her, and makes love to her regularly. He sees in her the object that causes him to desire. But he cannot stop himself from planning when they will make love and asking another woman to call him at that exact time. He does not just let the phone ring, or stop making love when he answers the phone. Instead, he answers the phone and talks with the caller while making love with his lover. His partner is thus annulled or neutralized, and he does not have to consider himself dependent on her, or on her desire for him, in any way. Orgasm usually leads, at least momentarily, to a cessation of thoughts, to a brief end to thinking, but since the obsessive continues to talk on the phone with his other woman, he never allows himself to disappear as conscious, thinking subject even for so much as a second" (Fink, 1997, p. 123). This example of an obsessive seems like a description of a hurricane man but what is important is the structural composition, the fact that "woman " for the man, in this case, is "object a", she embodies the object which causes the obsessive to desire. But, because she embodies the object, she exists for the obsessional only as the embodiment of the object, that is why she is not "really" a human being for the obsessive either, in the obsessive psyche she occupies the place of the object, not a human being, that could be loved as human and not as an object. "Object a" in Lacanian terminology is the linguistic object which operates in the the background and causes us (speaking beings) to desire. Further Fink writes "While making love, the male obsessive tends to fantasize that he is with someone else, thereby negating the importance of the person he is with. Desire is impossible in obsession, because the closer the obsessive gets to realizing his desire (say, to have sex with someone), the more the Other begins to take precedence over him, eclipsing him as subject. The presence of the Other threatens the obsessive with what Lacan calls "aphanisis", his fading or disappearance as subject. To avoid that presence, an extremely typical obsessive strategy is to fall in love with someone who is utterly and completely inaccessible or, alternatively, to set standards for potential lovers which are so stringent that no one could possibly measure up to them" (Fink, 1997, p. 124). It seems that obsessive structure is based on the fact of pure desire, a desire for more desire, a never-ending desire, which is a perfect description of a true capitalist subject, a subject who wants more in order to want more. The structural position of the woman in this case could be exchanged with a business venture in order to illustrate a situation within the capitalist dynamics of the fantasy. While engaging in one business venture, an obsessive begins another business venture, all the business ventures create more avenues for the possibility of the production of new desires, and desire continues in order to continue. Such structural configuration might be a very successful structure within the system of capitalism, where the ones that own the engines of production gather the capital, the more machines of production are created, the more capital the owner takes for himself. Smart and capable obsessional neurotics, might use their structure in positive ways, ways that would create avenues of desire which will encompass an environment of achievement. Further Fink desrcibes the structurality of the hysterical constilation thus "In the hysteric's fantasy, it is the Other (barred/A) - generally the hysteric's partner (for example, husband or boyfriend in the case of a heterosexual couple) - who desires. It thus seems, at first glance, that the hysteric herself occupies no position of desire, and is simply an object of a man's desire. Indeed, certain feminists claim that psychoanalysis, like society at large, assigns women no place as desiring subjects - that it objectifies them. But Lacan is describing, not prescribing: his first claim is that clinical experience teaches us that hysterics adopt a certain stance as objects. Whether or not they do so in large part due to women's social position is a moot point in this context, since Lacan's aim is neither to condemn nor to approve; he is simply saying that this is what clinicians see in analysis day in and day out. He is certainly not claiming that obsession is better than hysteria (if anything, the contrary!). As I have argued elsewhere, it seems to me that Lacan's point of view regarding women's association with the object is quite profound, involving the very nature of the symbolic order (signifiers, language) and its material medium" (Fink, 1997, p. 124).

The dynamics between obsession and hysteria provide a picture that splits between the one who eats the object in order to keep eating it and to desire more of it - obsessional, and the hysteric, who wants to be the object that wants to be eaten. Hysteric wants to be the object of desire, she wants to elicit the desire of her man, she wants to be the"phallus". The obsessional is the one who eats her in order to feel that he is accumulating the phallic signification through eating her. The structural dynamic between the two provides perfect coordinates for mapping desire between men and women. In the typical lively situation where the woman is disappointed because she thought he wanted her heart, but it turns out that he was just a pig who wanted only to use her as a masturbatory object. Two psychic structures have met each other and in some sense, both psychic structures received what they wanted (within the structural conditions of desire), the hysteric kept her desire unsatisfied and he, the obsessional, moved on to the next object because his desire was impossible. Women want to be wanted by men, to be the ones that elicit desire within them, to be the object of desire and men want to eat women like objects, accumulating them like prizes which elicit more desire and more prizes. Once the structural conditions of this whole game are consciously understood through rational extrapolation of the situation, the subject can move on to the next room, a room in which he or she might be able to start governing the process because the rules of the game in relation to the phallic signifier were understood. In his seminar Seminar XVII: The Other Side of Psychoanalysis, Jacques Lacan made the provocative statement:

"Psychoanalysis is not a question of helping people; it's about teaching them the rules of the game."

Which perfectly fits the situation: the relationship between the hysteric and the obsessional described above. Lacan here emphasizes that the goal of psychoanalysis is not to provide conventional help or support as other psychotherapeutic systems would suggest, but to reveal the fundamental structures—rules of language, desire, and unconscious processes—that shape human subjectivity. He suggests that psychoanalysis is about coming to terms with these underlying forces, rather than simply alleviating symptoms or providing comfort. Psychoanalytic endeavour looks more like an endeavour of jumping into the fire while wearing a special body suit, where you can understand why the heat is so hot and comprehend what is going on in hell. The prohibited dimension, a dimension of structures, which is governed by signifiers and their movement, sliding above or below the bar, creating or rejecting meaning, allowing the meaning to appear and then letting it go in order to find another object. Our existence on this earth, existence, which is played out by the structures themselves, desires, occupied by objects, objects that in themselves only signify the elicitation of desire itself and the possible modes of enjoyment. Further, Bruce writes thus "What must be stressed here is that the hysteric's stance as object is but one side of the story; for the hysteric also identifies with her male partner, and desires as if she were him. In other words, she desires as if she were in his position, as if she were a man. When Lacan says that "man's desire is the Other's desire", one of the things he means is that we adopt the Other's desire as our own: we desire as if we were someone else. The hysteric desires as if she were the Other - her male partner, in this case" (Fink, 1997, p. 124). So, the hysterical position, seemingly consists not only of being the object of the Other's desire, but, also, of desiring the way the Other desires, occupying the position of the object of desire while desiring the way the Other would desire. Hysteric occupies the position of desire as being the desired object while desiring herself the way the obsessional would desire her, this split condition creates the unsatisfiability of the hysterical desire, a position which wants to be wanted while wanting the way the other would want her.

To be continued..