Sexuality and the Real in Psychosis. Clinical Vignette

by | Vol 21 (1) 2003

This article deals with the case-study of a psychotic subject in which jouissance and the fragmented body play a dominant role. The jouissance of an abusive mother is inscribed on the body of this subject, a subject who is compelled to mutilate his or her body in order to ensure its unity and as such to make it his or her own. It is the same mother with her same jouissance, that appears in the Real to this subject. Through discussion of elementary phenomena – which, within the Lacanian structure of psychosis, can be divided into two categories: one the symbolic, as that which is signified by the Name-of-the-Father (P°) and consequently one which concerns the body and the jouissance (?°) of the Other signified by the phallus – it is argued that this case is situated beyond the two sexes by negating sexuality as a non-sexed being.

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