Changes

Lacan's contribution to the clinic is paramount in regard to the operation of ''jouissance'' in neurosis, perversion and psychosis. The three structures can be viewed as strategies with respect to dealing with ''jouissance''.

The [[neurotic]] [[subject]] does not want to sacrifice his/her castration to the ''jouissance'' of the Other (Écrits, 1977). It is an imaginary castration that is clung to in order not to have to acknowledge Symbolic castration, the subjection to language and its consequent loss of ''jouissance''. The neurotic subject asks 'why me, that I have to sacrifice this castration, this piece of flesh, to the Other?' Here we encounter the neurotic belief that it would be possible to attain a complete ''jouissance'' if it were not forbidden and if it were not for some Other who is demanding his/her castration. Instead of seeing the lack in the Other the neurotic sees the Other's demand of him/her.

The [[Pervert]] imagines him-/herself to be the Other in order to ensure his/her ''jouissance''. The perverse subject makes him-/herself the instrument of the Other's ''jouissance'' through putting the object a in the place of the barred Other, negating the Other as subject. His/her ''jouissance'' comes from placing him-/herself as an object in order to procure the ''jouissance'' of a phallus, even though he/she doesn't know to whom this phallus belongs. Although the pervert presents him-/herself as completely engaged in seeking ''jouissance'', one of his/her aims is to make the law present. Lacan uses the term père-version, to demonstrate the way in which the pervert appeals to the father to fulfil the paternal function.

The [[practice]] of [[psychoanalysis]] examines the different ways and means the subject uses to produce ''jouissance''. It is by means of the bien dire, the well-spoken, where the subject comes to speak in a new way, a way of speaking the truth, that a different distribution of ''jouissance'' may be achieved. The analytic act is a cut, a break with a certain mode of ''jouissance'' fixed in the fantasy. The consequent crossing of the fantasy leaves the subject having to endure being alone with his/her own ''jouissance'' and to encounter its operation in the drive, a unique, singular way of being alone with one's own ''jouissance''. The cut of the analytic act leaves the subject having to make his/her own something that was formerly alien. This produces a new stance in relation to ''jouissance''.

In [[psychosis]], ''jouissance'' is reintroduced in the place of the Other. The ''jouissance'' involved here is called ''jouissance'' of the Other, because ''jouissance'' is sacrificed to the Other, often in the most mutilating ways, like cutting off a piece of the body as an offering to what is believed to be the command of the Other to be completed. The body is not emptied of ''jouissance'' via the effect of the signifier and castration, which usually operate to exteriorise ''jouissance'' and give order to the drives.