Obsessional Neurosis

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 clichés 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

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

ABOUT THE EDITOR AND CONTRIBUTORS

PREFACE

INTRODUCTION

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

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

Lacanian Approaches to Obsession

The signification of debt in obsessional neurosis

CHAPTER FOUR

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

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

The Rat Man

The Lacanian Structure of obsessional neurosis

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