Customer Reviews

Does the Woman Exist?: From Freud's Hysteric to Lacan's Feminine

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A Lacanian colleague recommended Paul Verhaeghe's book to me, and I am forever grateful for that recommendation. Verhaeghe's accomplishment goes far beyond simply offering a synthesis of Lacan's work. His Freud scholarship is impeccable, demonstrating to the non-Lacanian psychoanalytic reader his thorough grounding in Freud as understood by British and American analysts (in fact, Verhaeghe's explication of Freud is one of the best I've read). He takes pains to articulate how Lacan studied this Freud and re-discovered another immanent in the pattern of development of Freud's work. Set within this detailed context, Verhaeghe's synthesis of Lacan has tremendous breadth and depth, particularly for a psychoanalytic reader new to Lacanian ideas. Verhaeghe's extraordinarily clear writing style, sharp sense of humor and obvious passion for his subject made the book impossible for me to put down. I am a training and supervising analyst in Los Angeles with an eclectic outlook shaped by Klein, Bion, and some American relational perspectives, and I found this to be one of the most stimulating psychoanalytic books I have read.

Does the Woman Exist? by Paul Verhaeghe is in my view one of the best available introductory works on Lacan and Freud. It is especially clear on the topic of femininity and the complicated problem of the father in Totem and Taboo.

Verhaeghe comes across as a caring teacher who is interested in sharing with others the fruit of his research, and his analytic acumen, in order to offer a step by step explanation of what was at stake for Freud as he struggled with the difficult question, "What does a woman want?" Not only does Verhaeghe make Freud's question our own, but he also takes the trouble to explain both how Lacan dealt with the Freud's question, as well as why Lacan had to change gears as new problems arose. It is true that in reading Verhaeghe's work one needs to leave at the door all prejudices and misconceptions about both Freud and Lacan, because for Verhaeghe neither ideology nor personal recognition are at the forefront of his preoccupations. I had been struggling for a long time with the writings of Lacan,and Verhaeghe is one of the few authors who actually addressed my concerns and my questions.

In a rare moment of optimism French psychoanalyst Lacan reassured that his difficult writings would become comprehensible to everyone within 10 years. That was 1966. Now, at the end of the century, it seems that his stylistic example, Joyce, was more realistic with his prospect of occupying universities for at least 100 years. Indeed, discussion about Lacan is still very much alive (cfr internet 'flame wars' about his controversial ideas on the end of psychoanalytic cure). Today psychoanalysts, but also other intellectuals, are still struggling with Lacans ideas and their relation to Freud - one of the main problems being how to 'transfer' what they have understood of Lacan to colleagues, other sciences, students, public. One of the first to show the way has been Jacques-Alain Miller. But someone like Slavoj Zizek is also making his own way, in the English speaking world. Now, with this book of Paul Verhaeghe, we witness the beginnings of another promising 'particular and problematic reading' of Lacan. Having read Freud in German and Lacan in French, PV reintroduces psychoanalysis in the anglosaxon world, but in a more subversive way than before. PV has understood that the beginning of subversion is the conceptual and clinical 'stripping bare' - very carefully, very slowly - of the inexistence of The Woman behind the different veils of hysterical masquerade. Consequently, readers may experience the reading of this book as one long pleasure ... preliminary to the next book of PV. Indeed, als PV demonstrates, the fact that The Woman does not exist (in the symbolic of unconscious) does not dispense from relating to one or several women in one way or another. A rich book from the conceptual and clinical point of view, which opens the question of sexual ethics.

In a rare moment of optimism French psychoanalyst Lacan reassured that his difficult writings would become comprehensible to everyone within 10 years. That was 1966. Now, at the end of the century, it seems that his stylistic example, Joyce, was more realistic with his prospect of occupying universities for at least 100 years. Indeed, discussion about Lacan is still very much alive (cfr internet 'flame wars' about his controversial ideas on the end of psychoanalytic cure). Today psychoanalysts, but also other intellectuals, are still struggling with Lacans ideas and their relation to Freud - one of the main problems being how to 'transfer' what they have understood of Lacan to colleagues, other sciences, students, public. One of the first to show the way has been Jacques-Alain Miller. But someone like Slavoj Zizek is also making his own way, in the English speaking world. Now, with this book of Paul Verhaeghe, we witness the beginnings of another promising 'particular and problematic reading' of Lacan. Having read Freud in German and Lacan in French, PV reintroduces psychoanalysis in the anglosaxon world, but in a more subversive way than before. PV has understood that the beginning of subversion is the conceptual and clinical 'stripping bare' - very carefully, very slowly - of the inexistence of The Woman behind the different veils of hysterical masquerade. Consequently, readers may experience the reading of this book as one long pleasure ... preliminary to the next book of PV. Indeed, als PV demonstrates, the fact that The Woman does not exist (in the symbolic of unconscious) does not dispense from relating to one or several women in one way or another. A rich book from the conceptual and clinical point of view, which opens the question of sexual ethics.

This is certainly a good story, a nice little fairy tale, that will undoubtedly persuade many that they now 'get' or 'understand' something of Lacanian theory and practice. But in this drive towards clarity and comprehension, are we not forgetting Lacan's warning that it is precisely when we think we understand that we most deceive ourselves? Is this book merely a particularly soothing mirage? More to the point: to what extent does the Professor's text differ from the 'imaginarisation' he attributes mainly to the defenses of the hysteric? Does this book ever truly take us past the realm of the imaginary? Prof. Verhaeghe claims his analysis is 'structural,' but exactly how? When does he ever take us truly into the TECHNICS, and not just the literary description, of symbolic structuration? When does this author ever consider how the three registers operate in his OWN discourse? How do we know that he has not presented us with a fantasy as defensive and fantastic as the pathological imagination of his objects of study? This book is certainly worth taking a look at, but it is also trapped in a logical paradox of which the author seems entirely unaware--or if he is, he ultimately blames it on the hysteric. These problems are intrinsic to the act of writing, however, and that position needs to be theorized and constructed in a much more rigorous way.

I guess I probably wasn't supposed to read it because it was directed at the Gentlemen and not us members of the "feminine world"...
I just have to share my shock at how objectifying that review was -- especially since Lacan makes such a good point about the social pressures on women to become objects of male gratification because there exist few outlets for genuine gratification as women. I read that as a critique of cultural objectification of women and the erasure of women's subjectivities... exactly the game Roberto is playing in his review.
I'm not surprised to hear that "dealing with hysterical patients" sounds like a challenge to him. I cannot see how one can ever hope to have a real dialogue with a subject that one insists on seeing as an object.
I can go on with my own analysis of Roberto's need for a narcissistic supply of self-objects that fulfill his grandiose need to feel like a "successful analyst"... but I've probably said enough.

(sorry if this is not exactly an appropriate use of the user review. the irony was just too much to refrain from commenting.)

For anyone with a knowledge of Freud this book offers an extremely user friendly introduction to Lacan. I particularly would recommend the sections on Lacan's discourse theory as Paul Verhaeghe has suceeded in making this vital yet tricky subject at once understandable and profound.

Gentlemen, I have read both the English and the Spanish edition of Verhaeghe's book, which has been very useful to me as an orientation for my clinical practice, as a psychoanalyst in my consultation-room and in during Liaison-psychoanalysis at the Hospital. The thorough clinical insight, the full assessment of the structure of hysteria and last but not least - the crystal-clear language, makes it an invaluable and indispensable tool, as well as a standard reference work. Not only I reccomend it highly: I cannot imagine anybody seriously trying to deal with hysteric patients without carefully studying this volume. A full review of the book may be found in the Journal Clinical Studies (Laura Szichman, ed.) New York, Vol. 4, No. 1, 1998, p.105-108 Roberto P. Neuburger, Buenos Aires, Argentina

This book was very disappointing. Behind the extremely tedious, boring, repetitive and completely passionless writing, the actual thesis can be stated in about one sentence, and it is nothing more than a re-wording of what anybody can already encounter in Lacan. Verhaeghe simply re-states and re-words Lacan, though without demonstrating any convincing structural or analytical comprehension. Though completely lacking in any original or distinctive ideas of his own, Verhaeghe repeatedly states that he is the "first" to produce this reading of Hysteria. Paradoxically, he manages to do nothing but regurgitate the already formulated Freudian-Lacanian viewpoint, while avoiding any kind of thorough, material, concrete engagement with their work. His work represents yet another entry into the bland academic stylized Lacan. He makes some very surprising omissions and declarations--such as, that he is the "first" to take note of the importance of Dora's homosexual attachment to Frau K. Completely ignoring Lacan's readings of Dora, he both plagariazes Lacanian insights while refusing to engage with the Lacanian texts. He "reads" texts--be it Freud, "patients," Dora, Lacan--in the most shallow, simplisitic, naively transparent way, as if utterly ignorant of the entire linguistic and interpretative project of psychoanalysis. This book will NOT incite and inspire.