Hysteria from Freud to Lacan

In the English-speaking psychoanalytic world, few diagnostic categories are as controversial as hysteria. This concept, widely held to reflect outmoded cultural prejudices aganist women, has virtually disappeared from our theoretical literature, diagnostic manuals, and traning programs. However far from being gender-bound, hysteria from 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?Juan-David Nasio, psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, is Director of Studies at the University of Paris VII (Sorbonne) and Director of the Séminaires Psychanalytiques de Paris, a major center for psychoanalystic training and the dissemination of psychoanalystic thought to non-specialists. He is a former member of the École Freudienne of Jacques Lacan and worked closely with the renowned child analyst Françoise Dolto. He is the Editor of the Psychoanalysis Series at Éditions Payot. Author of eight books on psychoanalysis, Dr. Nasio has published numerous articles and interviews in leading publications and has participated extensively in French radio and television broadcasts. He lives in Paris, where he practices psychoanalysis with adults and children.