ABSTRACT
Obsessional neurosis is an old refrain of psychoanalysis. It doesn’t have the reputation of brilliance, of inventiveness, of surprise, that hysterical neurosis has. The obsessional, according to the psychiatric tradition, is a very turbulent individual, anxious, agitated by his anxiety, and his impulsive behaviour has always been emphasised: from suicide to murder, via fugue states, disappearances, bankruptcies, indeed all the intemperate behaviours which never cease to disturb psychiatrists. So, while the hysteric maintains desire, even at the price of anxiety, the obsessional protects himself from anxiety at the price of a fantasy which he constructs at the whim of the Other. Obsessional neurosis is the most common form of neurosis in men, because the penis (and the way it functions) imposes on them the imagination of a jouissance that is limited and can be counted (stroke by stroke).
