Abstract

The goal of this article is to clarify the Lacanian concept of jouissance which has often been misunderstood and has been the subject of unnecessary obscurantism. We start from a few examples of jouissance and make a first attempt to explain the concept of jouissance from this perspective. Very soon we are confronted with a number of complex questions: Where does this concept of jouissance originate from?, What is the precise relation between jouissance and the pleasure principle?, Is there an equivalent to Lacanian jouissance in Freudian theory?, What is the connection between jouissance and evil?, Is there a moral dimension to jouissance?… In answering these questions we will come to three essential characteristics of Lacanian jouissance: self-loss , passivity and lack of sense for what is good . After this definition of the main characteristics of Lacanian jouissance, we briefly attempt to draw a rough sketch of the clinical relevance of jouissance and the manifestations of jouissance in psychosis, neurosis and perversions