Main description:

Despite the important place it occupies in both Freudian and Lacanian nosology, obsessional neurosis has received far less attention than its erstwhile companion hysteria. This book elaborates and deepen research into questions of obsession, going beyond the usual cliches which reduce obsession to the question "Am I alive or dead?". Emphasis is given to the structure of this neurosis, as distinguished from its symptomatology, and to clinical questions of work with obsessional subjects. The chapters provide discussions of some of the following themes: the creation of the category of obsessional neurosis and of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), the fate of desire and the inability to act in obsession, debt and guilt, obsessional manoeuvres and their implications for the treatment.

The book will be of interest to readers with academic or clinical backgrounds who wish to deepen their understanding of obsessional neurosis from a theoretical or clinical point of view. Newcomers to the subject will find signposts here that guide them through the complex landscape of obsession and lead them to avenues they may wish to pursue further.

Contents:

CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

ABOUT THE EDITOR AND CONTRIBUTORS

PREFACE

INTRODUCTION

A brief outline of Freud's and Lacan's conceptualisation of obsessional neurosis

Astrid Gessert

CHAPTER ONE

Guilty cognitions, faulty brains: Obsessive-compulsive disorders in the age of the condition-of-autonomy (1980-2010)

Pierre-Henri Castel

CHAPTER TWO

Lacanian Approaches to Obsession

Darian Leader

CHAPTER THREE

The signification of debt in obsessional neurosis

Moustapha Safouan

CHAPTER FOUR

The cutting edge of desire in obsessional neurosis: Lacan with Leclaire

Luca Bosetti

CHAPTER FIVE

The signification of mastery of the control of the orifices in anal eroticism

Moustapha Safouan

CHAPTER SIX

The Rat Man

Charles Melman

CHAPTER SEVEN

The Lacanian Structure of obsessional neurosis

Michel Silvestre

CHAPTER EIGHT

There is a stain on the horizon: A loop or two into obsessional neurosis

Vincent Dachy

INDEX