Table Of ContentPsychic Bisexuality
Psychic Bisexuality: A British-F rench Dialogue clarifies and develops
the Freudian conception according to which sexual identity is not
reduced to the anatomical difference between the sexes, but is con-
structed as a psychic bisexuality that is inherent to all human beings.
The book takes the Freudian project into new grounds of clinical
practice and theoretical formulations and contributes to a profound
psychoanalytic understanding of sexuality. The object of psychoanalysis
is psychosexuality, which is not, in the final analysis, determined by
having a male or a female body, but by the unconscious phantasies that
are reached après coup through tracing the nuanced interplay of identi-
fications as they are projected, enacted and experienced in the transfer-
ence and the countertransference in the analytic encounter.
Drawing on British and French Freudian and post-F reudian tradi-
tions, the book explores questions of love, transference and counter-
transference, sexual identity and gender to set out the latest clinical
understanding of bisexuality, and includes chapters from influential
French analysts available in English for the first time. Psychic Bisexual-
ity: A British-F rench Dialogue will appeal to psychoanalysts and psycho-
analytic psychotherapists as well as gender studies scholars.
Rosine Jozef Perelberg is a Fellow of the British Psychoanalytic
Society, Visiting Professor in the Psychoanalysis Unit at University
College London and Corresponding Member of the Paris Psycho-
analytical Society. Her books include Psychoanalytic Understanding of
Violence and Suicide and Female Experience: Four Generations of British
Women Psychoanalysts on Work with Women (with Joan Raphael-
Leff ). She is the author of Time, Space and Phantasy and Murdered
Father, Dead Father: Revisiting the Oedipus Complex. In 2007, she was
named one of the ten women of the year by the Brazilian National
Council of Women.
THE NEW LIBRARY OF PSYCHOANALYSIS
General Editor: Alessandra Lemma
The New Library of Psychoanalysis was launched in 1987 in associ-
ation with the Institute of Psychoanalysis, London. It took over
from the International Psychoanalytical Library which published
many of the early translations of the works of Freud and the writ-
ings of most of the leading British and Continental psychoanalysts.
The purpose of the New Library of Psychoanalysis is to facilitate
a greater and more widespread appreciation of psychoanalysis and to
provide a forum for increasing mutual understanding between psy-
choanalysts and those working in other disciplines such as the social
sciences, medicine, philosophy, history, linguistics, literature and
the arts. It aims to represent different trends both in British psycho-
analysis and in psychoanalysis generally. The New Library of
Psychoanalysis is well placed to make available to the English-
speaking world psychoanalytic writings from other European coun-
tries and to increase the interchange of ideas between British and
American psychoanalysts. Through the Teaching Series, the New
Library of Psychoanalysis now also publishes books that provide
comprehensive, yet accessible, overviews of selected subject areas
aimed at those studying psychoanalysis and related fields such as the
social sciences, philosophy, literature and the arts.
The Institute, together with the British Psychoanalytical Society,
runs a low- fee psychoanalytic clinic, organizes lectures and scientific
events concerned with psychoanalysis and publishes the International
Journal of Psychoanalysis. It runs a training course in psychoanalysis
which leads to membership of the International Psychoanalytical
Association – the body which preserves internationally agreed
standards of training, of professional entry, and of professional ethics
and practice for psychoanalysis as initiated and developed by
Sigmund Freud. Distinguished members of the Institute have
included Michael Balint, Wilfred Bion, Ronald Fairbairn, Anna
Freud, Ernest Jones, Melanie Klein, John Rickman and Donald
Winnicott.
Previous general editors have included David Tuckett, who played
a very active role in the establishment of the New Library. He was
followed as general editor by Elizabeth Bott Spillius, who was in turn
followed by Susan Budd and then by Dana Birksted-B reen. Current
members of the Advisory Board include Giovanna Di Ceglie, Liz
Allison, Anne Patterson, Josh Cohen and Daniel Pick.
Previous members of the Advisory Board include Christopher
Bollas, Ronald Britton, Catalina Bronstein, Donald Campbell,
Rosemary Davies, Sara Flanders, Stephen Grosz, John Keene, Eglé
Laufer, Alessandra Lemma, Juliet Mitchell, Michael Parsons, Rosine
Jozef Perelberg, Richard Rusbridger, Mary Target and David Taylor.
For a full list of all the titles in the New Library of Psychoanalysis
main series as well as both the New Library of Psychoanalysis
“Teaching” and “Beyond the Couch” subseries, please visit the
Routledge website.
THE NEW LIBRARY OF PSYCHOANALYSIS
General Editor: Alessandra Lemma
Psychic Bisexuality
A British- French Dialogue
Edited by
Rosine Jozef Perelberg
First published 2018
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2018 selection and editorial matter, Rosine Jozef Perelberg;
individual chapters, the contributors; translation of Chapters 1 and 8,
Sophie Leighton and Chapters 3, 6, 7 and 12 Andrew Weller.
The right of the editor to be identified as the author of the editorial
matter, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been
asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or
other means, now known or hereafter invented, including
photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval
system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or
registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and
explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Names: Perelberg, Rosine Jozef, editor.
Title: Psychic bisexuality : a British-French dialogue / edited by
Rosine Perelberg.
Description: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, 2018. |
Series: New library of psychoanalysis | Includes bibliographical
references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017041460 (print) | LCCN 2017048491 (ebook) |
ISBN 9781351262965 (Master) | ISBN 9781351262958 (Web PDF) |
ISBN 9781351262941 (ePub) | ISBN 9781351262934 (Mobipocket/Kindle)
| ISBN 9781138579026 (hardback : alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Sex (Psychology) | Bisexuality.
Classification: LCC BF175.5.S48 (ebook) | LCC BF175.5.S48 P7925
2018 (print) | DDC 155.3–dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017041460
ISBN: 978-1-138-57902-6 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-138-57903-3 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-351-26296-5 (ebk)
Typeset in Bembo
by Wearset Ltd, Boldon, Tyne and Wear
Contents
Notes on contributors xi
Foreword xvi
Acknowledgements xxiv
Introduction: a psychoanalytic understanding
of bisexuality 1
Rosine Jozef Perelberg
1 The beautiful differences 58
Christian David
2 Tell me whom you like best 81
Catherine Chabert
3 The origin of psychoanalysis between bisexuality
and transference 90
Monique Cournut- Janin
4 Love and melancholia in the analysis of women
by women 103
Rosine Jozef Perelberg
5 From bisexuality to the feminine 122
Jacqueline Godfrind
Contents
6 On bisexuality: being born with two eyes 133
Marilia Aisenstein and Harvey Rich
7 Stumbling blocks of the feminine, stumbling blocks of
psychic bisexuality 151
Nathalie Zilkha
8 Unconscious pacts and the bisexuality of the
countertransference in the treatment 170
Denis Hirsch
9 “No sex, please, we’re British”: some reflections on
bisexuality in contemporary clinical theory 189
Rosemary Davies
10 How to be both, by not being both: the articulation
of psychic bisexuality within the analytic session 207
Rachel Chaplin
11 Alienating identifications and sexuality 227
Donald Campbell
12 The neuter gender 243
André Green
13 Bye- bye, sexuality 258
Gregorio Kohon
Glossary 277
References 283
Index 301
viii
In Memory of
Marion Burgner, Mervin Glasser, André Green, Pearl King, Dinora Pines,
Joseph Sandler and Harold Stewart,
who paved my way towards a psychoanalytic understanding of psychic bisexuality.
ix
