Plus-de-jouir
Plus-de-jouir (French: surplus enjoyment or surplus-jouissance) is a concept introduced by Jacques Lacan in Seminar XVII: The Other Side of Psychoanalysis (1969–70)[1] to designate an excess of jouissance—a surplus enjoyment that emerges beyond the limits of pleasure, utility, or symbolic satisfaction. It is closely tied to Lacan’s theories of the drive, objet petit a, and the Discourse of the Master, and reflects his engagement with Karl Marx’s concept of surplus value (plus-value).
Whereas jouissance already points to a transgressive or excessive enjoyment beyond the pleasure principle, plus-de-jouir names the remainder—the residue of enjoyment that resists symbolization and is generated precisely through the subject's loss or renunciation of full satisfaction.
Jouissance, Loss, and Excess
To understand plus-de-jouir, it must be situated within Lacan’s broader reworking of Freudian notions of pleasure, desire, and the drive. Jouissance refers to a paradoxical enjoyment that emerges when the subject transgresses the limits imposed by the symbolic law—an experience at once pleasurable and painful, excessive and destabilizing.[2]
Entry into the symbolic order (language, law, culture) entails a loss of full jouissance. But this lost enjoyment returns in a distorted form—as an excessive, partial, repetitive satisfaction: plus-de-jouir. It does not fulfill desire but sustains it through compulsive repetition and symptomatic enjoyment.
Plus-de-jouir and the Drive
For Lacan, plus-de-jouir is directly produced by the functioning of the drive (pulsion). Unlike desire, which is structured by lack and oriented toward the Other, the drive is circular, organized around the lost object—the objet petit a. It does not aim at external satisfaction but at partial satisfaction generated through its own repetition.[3]
Just as surplus value is extracted in capitalist production beyond what is required, plus-de-jouir is the psychoanalytic surplus—the enjoyment extracted from the subject’s entanglement in language, prohibition, and the Other.
Objet petit a and Surplus Enjoyment
Plus-de-jouir is closely related to the objet petit a, Lacan’s name for the cause of desire. While objet a marks the gap or loss introduced by language, plus-de-jouir is the jouissance produced around that lack. It is the by-product of symbolic structuration, a trace of what has been lost but persists.
This surplus appears in the symptom as the satisfaction the subject both suffers and enjoys—a kind of unconscious, compulsive enjoyment that is not reducible to need or pleasure.[4]
Discourse of the Master and the Capitalist
In the four discourses theory, Lacan situates plus-de-jouir as the product of the Discourse of the Master—that which is extracted from the subject through symbolic subjection.[5] The subject, caught in the demand of the Other, produces knowledge, but the leftover of this operation is surplus jouissance—unarticulated and resistant to symbolization.
In the Discourse of the Capitalist, this logic becomes intensified. Capitalism enjoins the subject to “enjoy!” (jouis!), promoting excessive, meaningless satisfaction disconnected from desire. Plus-de-jouir thus becomes both a clinical phenomenon and a social product—a key to understanding the compulsive, addictive, and hyper-consumptive behaviors encouraged by contemporary ideology.
Clinical Implications
In the clinic, plus-de-jouir helps explain the subject’s attachment to their symptom. Even when it causes suffering, the symptom contains a kernel of jouissance—a surplus satisfaction that is unconscious and involuntary.
Psychoanalytic treatment does not aim to eliminate jouissance but to shift the subject’s relation to it. Through interpretation and the restructuring of the signifying chain, the analysand may recognize the enjoyment embedded in their symptom and come to assume it rather than suffer from it.
Summary
Plus-de-jouir is Lacan’s term for the surplus enjoyment generated by the structural operations of the drive, prohibition, and language. It is not the goal of desire, but the residue produced by its failure. Inspired by Marx’s surplus value, Lacan theorizes it as the excess jouissance extracted from the subject—at once painful, compulsive, and constitutive of subjectivity.
It links the domains of jouissance, drive, fantasy, and discourse, providing a powerful conceptual tool for understanding both individual symptoms and the ideological organization of collective enjoyment.
See Also
References
- ↑ Lacan, J. (1969–70). Seminar XVII: The Other Side of Psychoanalysis.
- ↑ Lacan, J. (1960). “The Subversion of the Subject and the Dialectic of Desire,” in Écrits.
- ↑ Lacan, J. (1969–70). Seminar XVII.
- ↑ Lacan, J. (1969–70). “Du discours psychanalytique,” in Écrits, Autres.
- ↑ Lacan, J. (1969–70). Seminar XVII.