23

We propose rereading Memoires of My Nervous Illness by Daniel Paul Schreber in the light of the concept of hysterical psychosis defined as a psychotic resolution of hysterical ambivalence toward the erotic desire to be penetrated (the vaginal component of sexuality). We have been led to discuss the three main propositions of the Freudian postulate relating to Schreber’s psychosis, stated a century ago: the homosexual nature of the pathogenic wish, the resort to the mechanism of projection, and the diagnosis of paranoia. We would like to propose another hypothesis, according to which Schreber’s delusion is of a hysterical nature, and that it translates the realization of a pregenital wish for penetration without a body, which is abolished.