Jouissance (1 of 7): Enjoying in the margins

Linking comments in Freud's 'Three essays on sexuality' to a series of examples ('flying into a rage', 'wallowing in depression'), we differentiate the Lacanian notion of jouissance from everyday notions of pleasure, highlighting how jouissance ('getting off on', 'morbid' excitation', 'painful modes of arousal', etc.) always involves the dimension of the excessive or transgressive. But is jouissance unconscious, and does it exist outside the domain of the symbolic?
Link to board:
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[@quantumastrologer5599]

You are the bruce fink of youtube!

[@iyze8792]

This is so cool. Thank you so much, I've just been binge-watching your videos. Lacan and in general psychoanalysis can be very esoteric, and having someone knowledgeable discuss it in a conversational way, using grounded examples and losing all of the pretense is just fantastic.

[@iyze8792]

The domain of literature definitely serves us better when it comes to psychoanalysis because (good) writers are just naturally attuned to translating the psychological/human complexities within us into something tangible. At least for me, to really understand or at least appreciate some passages in literature, you must have experienced it in a similar way. The writer's job, then, is to convey the nuance that goes in hand with the experience so you can recontextualize it with all of it's beauty. When I interpret the phrases 'wallowing in pity' or 'flying into a rage', I understand the subtleties because '*flying* into a rage' is something I've done before! It's the same for psychoanalytical ideas. It's difficult to understand what "Jouissance" means in its entirety unless you can pinpoint a past experience of Jouissance and examine the feelings and thoughts and arousal that came with it. That's why I think examples are the most helpful. It's impossible to directly say or explain what it is; it's instead easier to describe many situations where it occurs, as if outlining the perimeter of an invisible shape to finally see it. You know what the object is because you've described everything around it. Just a long, rambling thought.

[@derekhookonlacan]

I feel very similarly. There is often an avoidance of examples in the literature, perhaps in line with Lacan's preference for abstract formulas but I think examples are invaluable in initially approaching the material. AND it makes it more fun and relevant :)

[@punchgod]

@@derekhookonlacan Zizek agrees!

[@JD-td8kl]

Thank you greatly for these videos. I am a clinician, and a reader of Freud and Lacan for many years now. I often find that some of these concepts (such as Jouissance) are opaque or used a tad too liberally to seem to really "grasp" something. Hence I needed clarification, more precision, and your videos (just after watching the first 11 minutes!) look like they will be a massive help to me.

[@derekhookonlacan]

What motivates me in this videos is trying to make the concepts accessible whilst also trying to introduce necessary qualifications so they can be used with some analytical precision. This is very much the case with jouissance. I hope the series proves instructive. Thanks for your support.

[@tytospokojnie]

So good! Especially in how it differentiates the popular, mistaken ideas that you mention at the beginning. Cheers

[@FeelingPhilosophical]

Thank you so much for this! It's difficult to find explanations of Lacan's ideas that are this clear and understandable

[@flivon]

Your videos are awesome and very elucidating! Excelent work Thank you for sharing your knowledge for free on youtube

[@derekhookonlacan]

Thank you for your kind comments. Any other concepts you'd like to see discussed?

[@kalkfjhs]

@@derekhookonlacan thank you for your work! Suggestion: super ego and ego-ideal/ideal-ego!

[@lexparsimoniae2107]

Dear Derek, I would contend that "getting off" on something indicates a "release", and pleasure that is derived from release cannot be jouissance. Pleasure of release comes from satiating a lack. Jouissance, however, has nothing to do with lack. It has to do with excess. Thank you for your wonderful videos.

[@derekhookonlacan]

A really great comment! I use the 'getting off on' because I find it is a very effective way to get people to grasp the concept via an everyday colloquial term. You are correct though in as much that the term implies a kind of release whereas jouissance is more about the morbid excitation/arousal. I fully agree with your point. Thanks for bringing it to my attention.

[@maartenschumacher]

Maybe jouissance is also the reason why people slow down when driving past traffic accidents... In some way they want to see a mangled corpse even though they know it would traumatize them.

[@anupamdebnath1884]

Thank you so much for this lecture series.

[@yungcoolie]

Thank you so much. You are the best

[@bobbyraindance]

Really good lecture as usual. I’ve always liked the definition of Jouissance as an ‘excess of pleasure’. It’s interesting how you point out that pleasure has to have an element of displeasure or pain in it. Makes me think of the yin/Yang symbol in Taoism. Thought provoking ideas on the Friday 13th films as well which, as a horror filmmaker, is inspiring.

[@inco9943]

along these lines, Zizek often translates it as 'surplus enjoyment'

[@derekhookonlacan]

A more recent update to Friday the 13th is the film 'A cabin in the woods' which involves voyeuristic jouissance as well.

[@bobbyraindance]

@@derekhookonlacan That's a really good point. I really like that film. Was it you that was mentioning in your video how the guys were celebrating in the 'control room' whilst the female lead was fighting off demons on the screen behind them?

[@derekhookonlacan]

I've only just recently seen it but that is the kind of thing that I was referring to. The film thus implicates the jouissance of its viewers by making it clear that we are like the voyeurs who enjoy.

[@bobbyraindance]

@@derekhookonlacan that’s what I was thinking - you’re videos are really helpful for conveying Lacanian and Freudian ideas, and inspiring ways of thinking about film - both in terms of reading film and creating it. I bought a book on Hitchcock motifs that I’m really enjoying and it’s making me think deeper about a screenplay I’m working on with a Hitchcockian vibe to it. It’s a good way of thinking of objects (props) and settings as being loaded with psychological values. The trick from a creative point of view is keeping those ideas at the level of subtext so it doesn’t come off as clunky. That’s the aim, anyway.

[@devinjones5270]

Thank you. Excellent work.

[@reversefulfillment9189]

Just play the song by the Erasure "Love to Hate You" I think that sums it up.

[@lalalistic]

Thanks for the video! Can one experience jouissance from talking about jouissance?

[@derekhookonlacan]

Yes, later in Lacan's work he moves away from seeing jouissance solely as within the realm of the transgressive and speaks about joui-sans. That is the jouissance associated with speech, verbal annunciations and meanings.

[@EMC2Scotia]

Darian Leader has recently written a very interesting yet polemical book on this very topic...

[@Maziedivision]

This was such a clear,fluid introduction to Lacan - thank you! Just out of curiosity, did Lacan write much on mental illness? My initial interest in his works stemmed from my own reflection on having manic depression. Often times, mental breakdowns and confrontations always involved a sense of hyperactivity,almost resembling an excitement to do harm , think of harm, and want harm on others. I wanted to know if this rush of adrenaline in negative emotions is an example of jouissance . Similarly, my husband who has bipolar disorder also describes his negative emotions as a drive, something that energizes him into mania. It’s very interesting to wonder if Lacan’s development of jouissance was influenced by clinical observations he made on patients.

[@derekhookonlacan]

Some commentators say that Lacan's primary contribution in the area of psychopathology was to introduce a novel conceptualization of psychosis. Lacan's notion of jouissance if very much influenced by his clinical work as.a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst. What you say about the motivating power of negative emotions is interesting, it sounds very much like jouissance although I would be reticent to comment on your more personal issues from a distance. Thanks for watching.

[@ungestaltung2877]

Hi Derek, thank you very much for your great videos. I have one question: what is so traumatic about jouissance? And is there a way of bringing some kind of dissolution of the subject and jouissance together? (I think Lacan mentioned feminine jouissance in regards to this). Thank you!

[@derekhookonlacan]

Jouissance is traumatic because libidinal urges for Lacan are always potentially linked to death drive; arousal and stimulation are attained by pushing against limits or going beyond limits whether these are moral or limits of health and moderation. One Lacanian concept that speaks to 'dissolution of the subject' is subjective destitution, this perhaps doesn't directly relate to jouissance but involves the gradual deflation and working through of imaginary identifications and relations of the ego.

[@vygotsky17]

Is jouissance more like indulgence than enjoyment? We may not necessarily enjoy the rage of an argument, but we may "enjoy" the indulgence of giving-in to the release of rage, more like a sense of relief rather than the rage itself.

[@Lastrevio]

Is self-harm a form of Jouissance? What about eating spicy food?

[@SPACEDOUT19]

is loving the girl that doesn't care about you jouissance?

[@thevanishingmediators]

🔥🔥🔥🔥

[@alizaofbrooklyn]

Makes me wonder then what is the difference between jouissance and sexual masochism 🤔🤔

[@PeterStrider]

Sadomasochism would be simply one form or manifestation of jouissance, but as Derek explains lots of other slightly unseemly forms of heightened arousal would fall under this.

[@nicholasburch2122]

You are valencing emotions as positive or negative which is wrong. Sexual excitation is generated by tension because jouissance is the substance which emotions are made of. If pleasure is the release of jouissance, then resolving the tension (dealing with whatever emotional problem arises between two people) is why all jouissance is sexual in the sense that it is stimulation received pleasurably through its release. This feels tautological.

[@bentosobral]

Qd ca se felicite à gauche chez moi de me degommer alors que jme dtruisais deja tout seul....grosse jouissance de les voir augmenter les prix la bas pour que je ne debarque pas...mais DIS LEUR...que jvais trouver la parade et que jdebarqurais qd meme!