What Has Happened to the Diagnosis of Hysteria?
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“The vibrating red muscle of my mouth” What has happened to the diagnosis of hysteria? Jenny M. Woods A dissertation submitted to Auckland University of Technology in partial fulfillment of the degree of Master of Psychotherapy (MPsychotherapy). 2020 School of Clinical Sciences Auckland University of Technology Primary Supervisor: Margot Solomon 1 Table of Contents Attestation of Authorship .................................................................................. 3 Acknowledgements ........................................................................................... 4 Abstract ............................................................................................................... 6 Chapter 1: Why Hysteria? ....................................................................... 7 Psychoanalysis and me ................................................................................... 7 Fidelity ................................................................................................................. 8 The situation ....................................................................................................10 Hystoria .............................................................................................................12 Chapter 2: Methodology ....................................................................... 17 Locating my position .......................................................................................17 Truth ..................................................................................................................18 Desire ................................................................................................................20 Gleaning the history ........................................................................................22 Establishing an engagement .........................................................................23 Thinking diagnosis ..........................................................................................23 Free-floating attention ....................................................................................23 The dream work ..............................................................................................24 The surplus jouissance ..................................................................................24 Chapter 3: “Storms in her head”........................................................ 25 The treatment of hysteria: Freud’s time .......................................................26 Freud and hysteria: the early phase (pre-1890) .........................................29 Storms in her head ..........................................................................................32 Freud the interlocutor .....................................................................................35 Chapter 4: Slips of the Other’s tongue (Fink, 1995, p. 3)............. 39 Lacan’s subject ................................................................................................45 Chapter 5: “Speak, speak then, do what the hysterics do” ........ 55 .............................................................................................................................. 55 The four discourses ........................................................................................56 The hysteric’s discourse ................................................................................61 Sexuation .........................................................................................................62 The hysteric as enigma ..................................................................................65 Plugging up the hole of the Other’s lack ......................................................66 “The birth of truth in speech” ......................................................................... 68 Hysterisation ....................................................................................................71 Chapter 6: Discussion .......................................................................... 76 The University ..................................................................................................78 Master ...............................................................................................................79 Hysteric .............................................................................................................80 Analyst ..............................................................................................................83 Ending ...............................................................................................................84 References ............................................................................................... 86 2 Attestation of Authorship I hereby declare that this submission is my own work and that, to the best of my knowledge and belief, it contains no material previously published or written by another person (except where explicitly defined in the acknowledgements), nor material which, to substantial extent, has been submitted for the award of any other degree or diploma of a university or any other institution of higher learning. Jenny Woods 11/12/2020 3 Acknowledgements I pay homage to hysterics; silent or raging, ridiculed or discarded, assaulted or cajoled. Their question is in truth the question of speaking subjects. I thank Dr Margot Solomon, my academic supervisor, who supported me through the process of producing this work, I am very grateful for your compassion, welcome curiosity, and generous interaction with me and with my project. I wish to thank Joanne Emmens, my clinical supervisor during my time at AUT, I will always be grateful for you; your integrity, your clinical know-how, and your kindness. Joanne, as we say to one another, I clasp your hand warmly. I also wish to acknowledge and to thank my friend Leah Royden, who has offered support and care at many levels throughout this process. I am very thankful to have you as a friend, along with the other dear friends I have made during my time at AUT. In the Lacanian field I have been extraordinarily fortunate to be able to engage in genuinely supportive and creative clinical supervision with Dr Kaye Cederman and Dr Nicol Thomas. Thank you both for allowing me to share the subtlety and insightfulness of your thinking, you are both a joy to me. My encounter with and engagement in the Centre for Lacanian Analysis Aotearoa New Zealand has been invaluable to me, sustaining me during arid times. I thank Dr Gustavo Restivo for his desire to sustain the Lacanian field here in Aotearoa, and for his generous sharing of his vast knowledge of the praxis of psychoanalysis. Finally, I want to acknowledge my gratitude and love for my family. I thank my children Ezra, Grace, Matilda, and Baxter. I am grateful for your love and your humour. Each of you has offered me support in your own way. I offer my deep gratitude to my mokopuna Luca and Aamina, who are a joy to me. Above all, I thank Luke, my beloved. Your constant love, care, and kindness are precious to me. You have steadfastly supported me in my work and my writing, I am deeply grateful that you are. 4 Abstract Throughout written history, in both medical and literary texts, we find described a pattern of suffering, particular to speaking beings whose encounter with jouissance, with suffering and with the Other can be considered feminine in structure. The dominant discourses in psychotherapy at this time have largely, outside of psychoanalysis in the Lacanian field, discarded or diluted this diagnosis. Explicitly, within the Lacanian orientation, following Lacan who follows Freud, I intend to explore the phenomena of hysteria, hysteric experience, and the treatment of hysteria. I begin with a brief overview of the history of the diagnosis, and continue with a focus on the clinic of hysteria in the latter part of the 19th century, including Freud’s initial encounter with hysteria and Lacan’s proposal of the hysteric’s discourse. Reading both events in the history of this diagnosis opens a new way of thinking about and working with these speaking beings. Finally, I will consider the implications of my research in the fields of psychotherapeutic theory and clinical praxis. 5 Chapter 1: Why Hysteria? I am filling the room with the words from my pen. Words leak out of it like a miscarriage. I am zinging words out into the air and they come back like squash balls. Yet there is silence. Always silence. Like an enormous baby mouth. The silence is death. It comes each day with its shock to sit on my shoulder, a white bird, and peck at the black eyes and the vibrating red muscle of my mouth. - Sexton, 1981, p. 319. I am writing this dissertation for those outside the field of Lacanian psychoanalysis. Hysteria, both the diagnosis and the discourse, remain elemental in the field of Lacanian psychoanalysis. This dissertation is written for those in the psychotherapy community and beyond who have encountered hysteria only as a disorder rather than order; an order with a logical structure, an order with a logical symptom, an order which poses a question. To the best of my ability, I intend to avoid ‘Lacanese’, in the hope that this will create a document as widely accessible as possible. The terms I use which have complex meanings in psychoanalysis, such as desire, I use in a common dictionary sense unless explained otherwise. Psychoanalysis and me Psychoanalysis