In this first English translation of a classic text by one of the foremost commentators on Lacan's work, Nasio eloquently demonstrates the clinical and practical import of Lacan's theory, even in its most difficult or obscure moments.

Five Lessons on the Psychoanalytic Theory of Jacques Lacan is the first English translation of a classic text by one of the foremost commentators on Lacan's work. Juan-David Nasio makes numerous theoretical advances and eloquently demonstrates the clinical and practical import of Lacan's theory, even in its most difficult or obscure moments. What is distinctive, in the end, about Nasio's treatment of Lacan's theory is the extent to which Lacan's fundamental concepts -- the unconscious, jouissance, and the body -- become the locus of the overturning or exceeding of the discrete boundaries of the individual. The recognition of the of the implications of Lacan's psychoanalytic theory, then, brings the analyst to adopt what Nasio calls a "special listening".

Few diagnostic categories are as controversial in psychoanalysis as hysteria. Widely held to reflect outmoded cultural prejudices against women, hysteria has virtually disappeared from our theoretical literature, diagnostic manuals, and training programs. However, far from being gender-bound, this book shows that hysteria for Jacques Lacan represents a psychic strategy that bears on one of the most fundamental preoccupations of existence: What does it mean to be a woman? What does it mean to be a man?

Translation of a French text published in 1992 by +ditions Rivages. Nasio (psychology, U. of Paris VII) demonstrates the clinical and practical import of Lacan's theory. Topics include the linguistic structure of the unconscious, the unconscious as the displacement of the signifier between the patie