The Feminine – A Mode of Jouissance, by Marie-Hélène Brousse (NY, Libretto, 2022)

Dear friend, 

Thank you for asking about the translator of Marie-Hélène Brousse’s book, The Feminine – A Mode of Jouissance (New York, Libretto, 2022), at the London Workshop of the Freudian Field last week (16 May 2026). 

Yes, Janet Rachel was the name I chose for that publication. I had translated the book with the help of many people, and Rachel turned up towards the end of that process and persuaded me to give her some credit. She has always been interested in the question of femininity and feminism, in fact Rachel and I first got together in the early 1990s just after the breakup from my first love. This was just before I met Lacan and psychoanalysis. Rachel turned up when I cancelled my surname. I was well and truly fed up and wanted to ditch my patronym and set off on my own. After going through the most immediate solution (e.g. reverting to my mother’s maiden name, rejected on the grounds that he was just – ! – another father), Rachel whispered in my ear, reminding me that she had been sitting quietly between my first and last name for quite a long time, and perhaps it was time to come out! After a little research, I was happy to discover that Rachel is the name of one of the matriarchs in the Bible even though she never had a child of her own. That, in a nutshell, was how it happened in 1992 ... or thereabouts. It was a success. Together, Rachel and I created performances and presentations; wrote papers and put on plays; we wrote poetry and staged poetry evenings and even signed up for a Masters in Psychoanalysis at Brunel University. We completed the MA and Rachel is proud that her name is on that certificate. But when I decided to undertake my own personal analysis and even to undertake a formation in order to practice, she f**ked off. “No way!” said she. “I’m not doing that.” And I didn’t see her again until Covid struck. 

She re-emerged to remind me that I had taken out a couple of pensions back in the old days, and that they must by now be mature. Her name was on one of them, but it would be cynical to say she was only interested in the money. I believe she had also noticed that I was translating MHB’s book. After she helped me to sort through the paperwork for the pensions she then eagerly persuaded me to take the cash and spend it on horses. Together we embarked on two courses, where her name is also inscribed – one was the qualification to become an Equine Facilitated Psychotherapist, the other was a course in “Horse Speak” in which I discovered that horses communicate with body language and even seem to make sentences (I’ve written about some of that in this blog). 

While all this was happening, I continued to inch my way through the translation of MHB’s fantastic book. It is a short book, but needed a lot of care in translation. Rachel could not resist getting involved. She is still a feminist and began to be intrigued by the argument of the text. It was a pleasure to see her response to the old questions we had raised together in the 1990s about feminism, language, and the body.

Eventually she elbowed her way into one of my analytic sessions, and dazzled and, dare I say it, seduced my analyst. Before I knew where I was, Rachel was digging a channel for my jouissance that led me to write her name in the book. Poor old John was at my side, reminding me that we were now married, and that he it was who put in most of the elbow grease that led to such a good job being done of the text. 

I have to admit Rachel is a seducer. She persuaded me to change my FaceBook name and even my Twitter handle, and JAM, no less, endorsed this by giving me a shout-out under my new (old) name. But ... but ... but...

Reality gradually re-emerged. Rachel soon realised that I was up to my eyeballs in Psychoanalysis, and that John was no small part of my life. Although John is not in analysis, never has been, never wants to (this is a trait he shares with Rachel), he has been fully supportive of my efforts and my ethics in this direction, and is often to be found by my side when I am translating, reading, and writing for this field.

Is Rachel the name of my symptom? Or is she the name I have tried to give to the real of my unconscious? Has she been repressed, foreclosed, or disavowed? If I’m actively fictionalising her story, I would say that “she can’t help herself, that she has no other way but the way of jouissance.” I might add that “she didn’t seem to have spent the intervening years knotting herself together with the anchor that might weigh her down.” I might try to persuade you that it is I without her who has learned to tie knots. Have I not tied one to John Haney – a knot that is not without psychoanalysis? 

Or would this not belie the fact that Rachel is indeed still a part of me? Where has she gone? Where have I put her? Is she the thing I constantly lose? Do I not often find myself saying “where’s my …” without being able to finish the sentence? Should I rather say “where’s my Rachel?” Do I not often feel unable to get on with what I’m supposed to be doing, but begin berating myself for something I’m lacking? Should this now be: “If only I had my Rachel, then I would be able to ...” Do I mistake her for my imaginary phallus? Perhaps it is best to think of her as that extra bit that I was born with but have not yet found the proper use for, or the proper address to house her. I never know where she is, or what she is up to, or what she might do if she were to materialise. Best not to idealise her, certainly not to think of her as the all-powerful female figure that the feminism of my youth might have imagined, best not to vilify her either. Rather, it’s important to ask: if I have made a new alliance with jouissance, what has become of my Rachel?

So, thank you again, dear colleague, for asking about this stranger and for giving me this opportunity to introduce her.