Hysteria from Freud to Lacan (Lacanian Clincial Field)

In the English-speaking psychoanalytic world, few diagnostic categories are as controversial as hysteria. This concept, widely held to reflect outmoded cultural prejudices against women, has virtually disappeared from our theoretical literature, diagnostic manuals, and training programs. However, far from being gender-bound, hysteria for Jacques Lacan represents a psychic strategy that bears on one of the most fundamental preoccupations of existence: what does it mean to be a woman? What does it mean to be a man?