The Insistence of the Letter in the Unconscious--Jacques Lacan

The Insistence of the Letter in the Unconscious

Summary of the essay in two parts

Part I 

A General Assessment of Lacan 

[ It is hoped that this introduction will provide an overview of the main ideas propounded by Lacan]

Study materials for research scholars of Indian Universities.

Dr. S. Sreekumar

JACQUES LACAN (1901 – 81)

Introduction

Lacan is the most important psychoanalyst since Freud. Lacan’s works have changed the discipline both as a theory of the mind and as clinical practice so much so that over 50 % of the world’s analysts now employ Lacanian methods.

Lacan’s thoughts now pervades the disciplines of literary and film studies, women’s studies and social theory and is applied in diverse fields such as education, legal studies and international relations.

Lacan’s significant contributions to Psychoanalysis

[Tripartite model]

Lacan’s most significant contribution to psychoanalysis is his Tripartite model of the human psyche:-

1. The Imaginary [the mirror stage]

2. The Symbolic Order

3. The final order is the Real.

1. The Imaginary [The Mirror stage]

From birth to around 6 months we live in a world of wishes, images, united with the mother. Our self image is in flux because we do not yet differentiate. Between the age of 6 to 18 months we enter a transitional stage, the mirror stage. We literally or metaphorically begin to see ourselves in the mirror, as a differentiated being. We recognize the separation of objects from ourselves, leading to a feeling of lack (lost harmony). As we pass through the Imaginary order we long for the Mother, as a representation of total unity and wholeness.

2. The Symbolic Order

The Symbolic Order is the next phase in our development. We are conscious of separation, of difference. Males vs females. Right vs. wrong. We learn language. Really, language masters us, shapes us as individuals. The father figure dominates in this phase. He represents the rules, the laws, norms. The symbolic represents a further remove from the mother.

3. The Real

The final order is the Real. It includes the physical world; it includes everything the person is not. In the Real Order we are conscious of our perennial lack.

Differences between Lacan and Freud

1. Lacan was concerned to distinguish   the ego from the subject and to elaborate a conception of subjectivity as divided or ‘alienated’. In Freud the ‘Ego’ is often associated with consciousness. But Lacan felt that this was a mistake. He felt that the subjectivity is essentially divided.

     

2. The unconscious is structured like a language. Freud   viewed the unconscious as chaotic. Lacan felt that it was not so. On the other hand the unconscious is ordered and is structured like a language.

Lacan—a brief biography

Jacques Lacan (1901 – 81 )     

Full name: JACQUES MARIE ÉMILE LACAN.

Lacan earned a medical degree in 1932 and was a practicing psychiatrist and psychoanalyst in Paris for much of his career. He reached prominence only after he began conducting regular seminars at the University of Paris in 1953. He acquired celebrity status in France after the publication of his essays and lectures in Écrits (1966). The book established his reputation as an original interpreter of Freud's work.

Later in 1964, Lacan founded and headed an organization called the Freudian School of Paris. However, he was not satisfied with its functioning. Finally, he disbanded the school in 1980 for its failure to adhere ‘with sufficient strictness’ to Freudian principles.

Lacan—A Critical Estimate

Achievements

1. Lacan emphasized the primacy of language as the mirror of the unconscious mind. He introduced the study of language into psychoanalytic theory. His major achievement was his reinterpretation of Freud's work in terms of structural linguistics.

2. The influence he gained extended well beyond the field of psychoanalysis to make him one of the dominant figures in French cultural life during the 1970s.

3. In his own psychoanalytic practice, Lacan was known for his unorthodox, and even eccentric therapeutic methods.

Adverse Critical Opinions

To say that Lacan is a controversial figure is an understatement. He was a charismatic teacher, flamboyant, charming and something of a dandy [a man who cares a lot about his clothes and appearance]. He was also extremely ambitious,  arrogant and authoritarian.

Raymond Tallis writes thus in Times Higher Education Supplement:

“Future historians trying to account for the institutionalized fraud that goes under the name of ‘theory’ will surely accord a central place to the influence of the French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan. He is one of the fattest spiders at the heart of the web of muddled  not-quite-thinkable thoughts and evidence”.

Why is it difficult to understand Lacan?

1. To a certain extent the difficulty of Lacan’s style is precisely the self-conscious desire on his part to resist any easy assimilation and recuperation of his ideas. As Lacan himself puts it in his seminar XX:

“It is rather well known that those Ecrits cannot be read easily. I can make a little autobiographical admission—that is exactly what I thought. I thought they were not meant to be read”.

2. Another difficulty is related to the object of study—unconscious. The unconscious does not know time or contradiction; it is a realm of repressed wishes and fantasies; and it is also a realm without syntax or grammar.

IN what sense then can we actually speak of unconscious wishes and desires?

To speak of unconscious desire is to render it conscious and the unconscious by definition cannot be recalled to consciousness. It is excluded from language and according to Freud we can detect the workings of the unconscious through our anxieties and phobias, but we can also detect its effects though our dreams, jokes, slips of the tongue and works of art.

Lacan tries to articulate through the structure of language something that remains beyond language itself: the realm of unconscious desire. ‘His writing is an attempt to force the reader to confront the limits of meaning and understanding and to acknowledge the profoundly disturbing prospect that behind all meaning lies non-meaning, and behind all sense lies non-sense’.

Thus his prose is full of puns, jokes, metaphors, irony and contradictions, and there are many similarities in form to that of psychotic writing. One should never take Lacan too seriously; the puns, the wordplay and the elusive roundabout way of speaking are not superfluous but essential to an understanding of his work.

[Scholars are requested to go to Part II of the essay]

Dr. S. Sreekumar

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Dr. S. Sreekumar