What does a woman want? As Freud admits, this is "the only great question left unanswered" by psychoanalysis, the "dark continent" that remains unexplored. However, it could also serve as a truth test for the psychoanalytic experience.

After a thorough study of Freud's work, Paul-Laurent Assoun expresses everything that the father of psychoanalysis thought but never dared to write. Based on Freud's relationship with femininity and the findings of over thirty years of clinical research, the author formulates a structural theory on "the desire-woman," reconstructing step by step the story of a passion, with all the dead ends and challenges it entails.

The relationship with the mother emerges as the starting point of "becoming-woman" and helps us establish the female version of the Oedipus complex. Ultimately, it is an attempt to define the status of women within culture: the woman expresses discomfort and embodies its truth.

[Excerpt from the text on the back cover of the edition]