Grant Me the Knowledge of What I Want Because All I Know Is That I Want: A Lacanian View of Hysteria

ABSTRACT

Freud’s work with hysterics led him to the discovery of the unconscious and the founding of psychoanalysis. The dream of the beautiful butcher’s wife, one of Freud’s patients, is examined following Lacan’s added insights that give full credit to his well known statement: “The unconscious is structured like a language.” Three basic identifications are presented by Lacanian analysis and I add a clinical vignette that exemplifies my work in the treatment of a couple.

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Notes on contributors

Macario Giraldo

Macario Giraldo, Ph.D., is on the faculty of the Lacanian Forum of Washington, D.C., the Washington School of Psychiatry, and Director of the Education and Psychology Institute (EPI) in Arlington, Virginia.