Leticia Glocer Fiorini explores the impasses of binary thought and of the essentialist conceptions of women and the feminine. In this trajectory, the author s ongoing dialogue with Freud is connected with one aspect of his way of thinking: multicentered and complex. The text addresses questions relating to love, sexual desire, maternity, beauty and the passing of time and highlights current debates concerning women, the feminine, and sexual difference as well as some controversial topics that have been discussed throughout the history of the psychoanalytic movement. One of the most relevant subjects is the notion of feminine enigma and the conceptions of the feminine as the negative of the masculine, which means going into the nature-nurture debate, as well as into considerations of the feminine seen as the other of the masculine. The author points out that the notion of feminine enigma is a displacement of the enigmas inherent to the origins, to the finite time of life (the inevitability of death) and to sexual difference. The basic misunderstanding stemming from this enigmatic condition is an equation of the feminine to otherness.This text is the result of a line of work that the author has been developing for several years, based on her psychoanalytic training and practice as well as on her reading and interests relating to women and the feminine in other fields: philosophy, epistemology, anthropology and history. It is part of her interest in the modes of thought underlying conceptualizations on women in psychoanalysis. Advances in the relation between psychoanalysis and the feminine involve considering the complex relations around the question of sexual difference and the always problematic construction of sexual identity."

The guiding thread of this theoretical review is the illumination of the impasses of binary thought and of the essentialist conceptions of women and the feminine. In this trajectory, the author's ongoing dialogue with Freud is connected with one aspect of his way of thinking: multicentred and complex. The text addresses questions relating to love, sexual desire, maternity, beauty and the passing of time and highlights current debates concerning women, the feminine, and sexual difference as well as some controversial topics that have been discussed throughout the history of the psychoanalytic movement. One of the most relevant subjects is the notion of 'feminine enigma' and the conceptions of the feminine as the negative of the masculine, which means going into the nature-nurture debate, as well as into considerations of the feminine seen as the other of the masculine. The author points out that the notion of 'feminine enigma' is a displacement of the enigmas inherent to the origins, to the finite time of life (the inevitability of death) and to sexual difference.

The greater part of this book focuses on a critical analysis of the logics and ways of thinking supporting both explicit and implicit theories of sexual difference and the masculine/feminine pair. These theories may be private or collective; conscious, preconscious, or unconscious. They impact heavily on interpretations and constructions made in analytic practice, while they also affect transference-countertransference patterns. This conceptual analysis reviews the Freudian oeuvre as well as the work of other significant authors, post-Freudian and contemporary, that have contributed specifically to this topic. The concept of sexual difference contains a persistent problem: binary, dichotomous thinking and its blind spots and aporias. For this reason, the author has turned to other epistemologies that offer novel forms to think about the same problems, such as the paradigm of hyper-complexity, as well as thinking at intersections and limits between different categories.

"Willy and Madeleine Baranger, analysts of French origin, who trained in Argentina, and who had a decisive role in the development of Uruguayan psychoanalysis, are two of the most creative and stimulating authors in Latin American psychoanalysis. Among their many contributions, I would like to mention two main concepts that can shed light on the therapeutic action of psychoanalysis. Their concepts of the dynamic field and unconscious fantasy represent the convergence of various contemporary schools of thought, such as the ideas of Kurt Lewin, Gestalt psychology and elaborations of ideas first put forward by Klein, Isaacs, and Bion." -- Claudio Laks Eiznik, President of the IPA, from the Foreword"With Baranger s collected papers, the IPA] has the aim of publishing and expanding the Baranger s oeuvre to English language and, consequently, to a broader spectrum of readers. These contributions represent a pioneering and anticipatory work of great interest to the psychoanalytical world. Their proposals concerning the concept of psychoanalytic field, basic unconscious fantasy, bastion and insight, addresses the whole question of the analytic situation and anticipate current debates." -- Leticia Glocer Fiorini from the Series Foreword"

In this book a group of contemporary psychoanalytic authors dedicated to studies on women and the feminine have been assembled with the objective of displaying points of concordance and discordance in relation to Freudian proposals. Discourse on women has changed greatly since Freud's time. It coincides with deep changes experienced by women and the feminine position, at least in most of the Western world. It is common knowledge that contraceptives, assisted fertilization, advances in women's rights, growingly evident sublimational capacities and demonstrations of professional success have definitely changed ideas regarding an eternal and immutable feminine nature. The authors are interested in illuminating ways in which these changes have or have not influenced psychoanalytic debate in relation to the feminine. This implies renewing the question of what is authentically feminine and whether there is any essential truth concerning the feminine. They select as a starting point: Femininity, the thirty-third lecture of the New Introductory Lectures on Psycho-Analysis (1933 1932]), a paper in which Freud reflects, and at the same time expands ideas developed in previous texts which state his concepts on femininity."

In contemporary psychoanalysis, the concepts of time and history have become increasingly complex. It is evident that this trend offers us an opportunity to think about the intercrossing of the different temporal dimensions imbuing the subject, an inevitable aspect of the analytic process. History is time past but what is recovered is now the working through of the subject history, which carries the mark of both passing time and re-signifying time. It is precisely the notion of history that gains different dimensions when a purely deterministic analysis is disassembled. Continuities and breaks are found between subjective time and chronological time; between the inevitable decrepitude of the biological body with the passing of time and the timelessness of the unconscious; between linear, circular times and retroactive re-signification; between facts, screen memories, memory and the work of constructing history; between the times of repetition and the times of difference; between reversible and irreversible time; between the timelessness of the unconscious and the temporalities of the ego.

In this book a group of contemporary psychoanalytic authors dedicated to studies on women and the feminine have been assembled with the objective of displaying points of concordance and discordance in relation to Freudian proposals. Discourse on women has changed greatly since Freud's time. It coincides with deep changes experienced by women and the feminine position, at least in most of the Western world. It is common knowledge that contraceptives, assisted fertilization, advances in women's rights, growingly evident sublimational capacities and demonstrations of professional success have definitely changed ideas regarding an eternal and immutable feminine nature. The authors are interested in illuminating ways in which these changes have or have not influenced psychoanalytic debate in relation to the feminine. This implies renewing the question of what is authentically feminine and whether there is any essential truth concerning the feminine.

This book expands the authors' oeuvre to the English language and, consequently, to a broader spectrum of readers. These contributions represent a pioneering work of great interest to the field of psychoanalysis. Their proposals concerning the concept of psychoanalytic field, "basic unconscious fantasy", bastion and insight, address the whole question of the analytic situation and anticipate current debates.

The greater part of this book focuses on a critical analysis of the logics and ways of thinking supporting both explicit and implicit theories of sexual difference and the masculine/feminine pair. These theories may be private or collective; conscious, preconscious, or unconscious. They impact heavily on interpretations and constructions made in analytic practice, while they also affect transference-countertransference patterns. This conceptual analysis reviews the Freudian oeuvre as well as the work of other significant authors, post-Freudian and contemporary, that have contributed specifically to this topic. The concept of sexual difference contains a persistent problem: binary, dichotomous thinking and its blind spots and aporias. For this reason, the author has turned to other epistemologies that offer novel forms to think about the same problems, such as the paradigm of hyper-complexity, as well as thinking at intersections and limits between different categories.

In contemporary psychoanalysis, the concepts of time and history have become increasingly complex. It is evident that this trend offers us an opportunity to think about the intercrossing of the different temporal dimensions imbuing the subject, an inevitable aspect of the analytic process. History is time past but what is recovered is now the working through of the subject history, which carries the mark of both passing time and re-signifying time. It is precisely the notion of history that gains different dimensions when a purely deterministic analysis is disassembled. Continuities and breaks are found between subjective time and chronological time; between the inevitable decrepitude of the biological body with the passing of time and the timelessness of the unconscious; between linear, circular times and retroactive re-signification; between facts, screen memories, memory and the work of constructing history; between the times of repetition and the times of difference; between reversible and irreversible time; between the timelessness of the unconscious and the temporalities of the ego.