Table Of ContentFEMININE SEXUALITY
Also by Juliet Mitchell
WOMAN'S EST ATE
PSYCHOANALYSIS AND FEMINISM
THE RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF WOMEN
(editor with Anne Oakley)
Also by Jacqueline Rose
THE CASE OF PETER PAN OR THE
IMPOSSIBILITY OF CHILDREN'S FICTION
FEMININE SEXUALITY
Jacques Lac an and the
ecole freudienne
Edited by
Juliet Mitchell
and
Jacqueline Rose
Translated by
Jacqueline Rose
M
MACMILLAN PRESS
LONOON
English translation© Jacqueline Rose 1982
Selection, editorial matter and introductions
©Juliet Mitchell and Jacqueline Rose 1982
©
Chapters 1, 2, 3 Editions du Seuil1966
Chapter 4 © Editions du Seuil1968
Chapters 5, 6 © Editions du Seuil1975
©
Chapter 7 Le Graphe 1975
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be
reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
without permission
First edition 1982
Reprinted 1983
Published by
THE MACMILLAN PRESS LTD
London and Basingstoke
Companies and representatives
throughout the world
ISBN 978-0-333-34155-1 ISBN 978-1-349-16861-3 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-16861-3
Typeset in Great Britain by
ART PHOTOSET LIMITED
Beaconsfield, Bucks
Contents
Editors' Priface Vll
List of Abbreviations lX
Introduction- I Juliet Mitchell 1
Introduction- II Jacqueline Rose 27
Translator's Note 59
1 Intervention on Transference 61
2 The Meaning of the Phallus 74
3 Guiding Remarks for a Congress on Feminine
Sexuality 86
4 The Phallic Phase and the Subjective Import of
the Castration Complex 99
5 Feminine Sexuality in Psychoanalytic Doctrine 123
6 God and the]ouissance of The Woman 137
A Love Letter 149
7 Seminar of21January 1975 162
Bibliography 172
Index 179
Editors' Preface
The articles translated here are a selection put together by us in
1975 from the works of the French psychoanalyst, Jacques Lacan,
and the ecole freudienne, the school of psychoanalysis which he
directed in Paris between 1964 and 1980. They have never
appeared together before, and only one has been translated
previously into English. In making this selection our objective
has been to show the relevance of Lacan's ideas for the
continuing debate on femininity within both psychoanalysis
and feminism.
Lacan's relationship to the psychoanalytic institution has
always been controversial; his work became controversial
for feminism when, in the 1970s, he focused more intensively
on the question of feminine sexuality. In the years prior to
his death in September 1981 both these controversies intensi
fied.
The basic premise of Lacan's work is a questioning of any
certainty or authority in notions of psychic and sexual life. There
is a connection between this premise and his repeated breaks
with psychoanalytic institutions. In January 1980 Lacan unilat
erally dissolved the ecole freudienne in order to stop what he saw
as the degradation of his ideas under the weight of his own
institution. But this act, like Lacan's presentation of his
work, was a challenge to authority yet at the same time
authoritarian and patriarchal. It will be clear to the reader in
the texts which follow that Lacan was trapped in the circles of
this paradox.
The texts are preceded by an Introduction. In the first part,
Juliet Mitchell situates Lacan's work in relation to his overall
project within psychoanalytic theory, and then gives an account
of the earlier psychoanalytic debate on femininity in the 1920s
and 1930s of which these texts are in many ways the direct sequel.
In the second part, Jacqueline Rose describes the conceptual
movement of the texts themselves, and the implications of the
debate on femininity in and around the work ofLacan. Although
each part can be read separately, the Introduction as a whole
Vll
Vlll Editors' Priface
represents a double engagement expressing our shared sense of
the importance of Lacan for psychoanalysis, and of psycho
analysis for feminism.
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank Sally Alexander and George Craig.
january 1982 J. M.
J. R.
List of Abbreviations
PF The Pelican Freud Library (Harmondsworth: Penguin).
IJPA International journal of Psychoanalysis (bulletin
of the International Psychoanalytical Association,
London).
PQ Psychoanalytic Quarterly.
IT 'Intervention on Transference'.
MP 'The Meaning of the Phallus'.
c
'Guiding Remarks for a Congress on Feminine
Sexuality'.
pp 'The Phallic Phase and the Subjective Import of the
Castration Complex'.
FS 'Feminine Sexuality in Psychoanalytic Doctrine'.
E 'God and the Jouissance of The Woman'( Encore.
'A Love Letter' $
0 'Seminar of21 January 1975'.
References to Freud, by volume number, year of first publication
of article and page number, unless otherwise stated are to The
Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund
Freud, 24 vols (London: Hogarth, 1953--74). References to works
other than Lacan's seminars and Ecrits are given by author and
date. References to Lacan's seminars are by their seminar number
(for example, SXX), and to Ecrits as Ecrits with the earliest date of
publication or presentation of the article in parenthesis; the page
number to translations of articles which have already appeared in
English is provided in italics after the original page number,
although the translations might have been slightly modified. Full
bibliographical information is given at the beginning of each
translated text and in the general bibliography at the end of the
collection.
IX
INTRODUCTION- I
Juliet Mitchell
I object to all of you (Horney, Jones, Rado, etc.,) to the extent
that you do not distinguish more clearly and cleanly between
what is psychic and what is biological, that you try to establish
a neat parallelism between the two and that you, motivated by
such intent, unthinkingly construe psychic facts which are
unprovable and that you, in the process of doing so, must
declare as reactive or regressive much that without doubt is
primary. Of course, these reproaches must remain obscure. In
addition, I would only like to emphasize that we must keep
psychoanalysis separate from biology just as we have kept it
separate from anatomy and physiology ....
(Freud, letter to Carl Miiller-Braunschweig, 1935)
Jacques Lacan dedicated himself to the task of refinding and re
formulating the work of Sigmund Freud. Psychoanalytic theory
today is a variegated discipline. There are contradictions within
Freud's writings and subsequent analysts have developed one
aspect and rejected another, thereby using one theme as a jump
ing off point for a new theory. La can conceived his own project
differently: despite the contradictions and impasses, there is a
coherent theorist in Freud whose ideas do not need to be diverged
from; rather they should be set within a cohesive framework that
they anticipated but which, for historical reasons, Freud himself
could not formulate. The development of linguistic science
provides this framework.
It is certainly arguable that from the way psychoanalysis has
grown during this century we have gained a wider range of
therapeutic understanding and the multiplication of fruitful
ideas, but we have lost the possibility of a clarification of an
essential theory. To say that Freud's work contains contra
dictions should not be the equivalent of arguing that it is hetero
geneous and that it is therefore legitimate for everyone to take
their pick and develop it as they wish. Lacan set his face against
1
