Surveying the Analytic Field

 

Hysteria today

Anouchka Grose, Karnac, 2016

ISBN: 978-1-7822010-4-5

£16.24/$29.95

 

Reviewed by Derek Hook

As Patricia Gherovici (2017) has recently noted, the histories of psychoanalysis and hysteria are intimately connected. Both demonstrate that there is no natural object for the drive; both are testimony to the fact that there is no pre-given “normal” model of sexuality. The imperative to reiterate these two fundamentally Freudian principles is particularly urgent today in an era of trans-gender/sexuality, in time when psychoanalysis is more than ever be called upon to demonstrate its relevance. Hence, the urgency of attending to what hysteria might be, and what diverse forms hysteria might take in today’s world.

Anouchka Grose’s impressive collection of essays – published by Karnac under the imprint of London’s Centre for Freudian Analysis and Research – provides an instructive means of comparing varying definitions and descriptions of hysteria in contemporary clinical work. 

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