Obsessional neurosis in psychoanalysis
anecdote · personal/autobiographical ·
retold in 12 talks
Žižek recounts being diagnosed as an obsessional neurotic during his own psychoanalysis; he would talk non-stop in sessions to prevent the analyst from asking a difficult question, not to achieve change but to ensure nothing would change.
≤2000talks it is told in, per year2026
As told 12
“I didn't want even to give a second to the analyst to ask me some tough question. The idea was talk talk talk, not so that you achieve something but to make sure that nothing will change.”
“if you look at me for more than five seconds and you don't get that I'm obsessional neurotic then I am sorry for you.”
“these rituals themselves became a source of pleasure. You, in a perverse way, you enjoy them. So you know no matter how you want to get rid of it, you cannot”
What it carries
one story, many jobs: the ideas this anecdote is deployed to argue, one tally mark per use (an idea page shows the same relation from the other end, as its shelf of stories)
Its cast and sources
populated by
Joschka Fischer2Robert Pfaller4Chantal Mouffe2Primo Levi3B. R. Ambedkar2Ayaan Hirsi Ali1Amin Maalouf1José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero1
alongside works
Every retelling 12
Žižek recounts being diagnosed as an obsessional neurotic during his own psychoanalysis; he would talk non-stop in sessions to prevent the analyst from asking a difficult question, not to achieve change but to ensure nothing would change., illustrating tolerated criticism,obsessional neurosis,resistance to change
34:20 XLII Sigmund Freud Lecture by Slavoj Žižek: Theology, Negativity, and the Death-Drive2015 · 1:49:50
Žižek jokes that his own obsessional neurosis is visible in his face; the rituals meant to protect from desire become the site of enjoyment (jouissance)., illustrating jouissance,Zwangsneurose,death drive
An obsessive builds rituals to suppress a forbidden desire; the rituals themselves become a source of perverse pleasure, so the subject cannot get rid of jouissance even when trying to., illustrating jouissance,reflexivity of the unconscious,obsession
In his own analysis Žižek talked incessantly because he was mortally afraid that if he paused the analyst would ask a genuinely hard question, the same structure, he says, underlies our chatter about global warming., illustrating talk a lot so we don't have to think,knowledge as fetish
Žižek confesses his own psychoanalysis failed because he talked incessantly to prevent the analyst from asking a truly pertinent question, used as a metaphor for how intellectual engagement can be a form of avoidance., illustrating false engagement,Bartleby politics
Žižek recounts entering psychoanalysis briefly and talking incessantly, not because he had anything to say but out of fear that if he stopped the analyst would ask a truly embarrassing question. He uses this as a self-critical illustration of pseudo-activity., illustrating pseudo-activity,interpassivity