What Does a Woman Want?

by Serge André

Freud's question is at the root of his discoveries about the unconscious. Serge André says that a woman wants the truth, and, in this subtle and highly original comparison of Freud and Lacan, he explains why.

Genres: Psychology

380 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1986

About the author

Psychanalyste et ecrivain à Bruxelles, membre de l'École de la cause freudienne et de l’École belge de psychanalyse. Il a publié notamment L’Imposture perverse, (1993) aux Éditions du Seuil.

Reviews

[Mina Herz]

André is working in almost precisely this theoretical territory. Not "women are submissive." Not "alpha male triggers female mating psychology." Not Robert Johnson's straightforward anima/projection story. The question is whether there is a form of feminine enjoyment that cannot be fully represented by the ordinary subject-object structure of: I desire X, I obtain X, X satisfies me.

And you've independently reached this bizarre language of ego death, crossing a threshold, letting yourself go, being made into a girl, and then discovering that the receptive/babied woman and the intellectually sovereign woman are somehow the same woman rather than opposites.

[Larry]

Simply the best essay on Lacanian psychoanalysis I've read so far. The key idea is an explanation of the castration complex: there is only one sex in the unconscious (the phallus), which can manifest itself in one of two ways: as being there (the penis) or lacking (the vagina), and accordingly, two possible modes of enjoyment: one that is entirely subjected to the symbolic (phallic) order (masculine) and one that is not (feminine). All in all, it can be read as an illuminating commentary on Lacan's Encore (Seminar XX). A fine achievement.

[Dries]

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