Alienation

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French: [[aliénation]], German: Entfremdung

Sigmund Freud

The term "alienation" does not constitute part of Freud's theoretical vocabulary.

Jacques Lacan

References

In Lacan's work the term implies both psychiatric and philosophical references:

Psychiatry

French psychiatry in the nineteenth century (e.g. Pinel) conceived of mental illness as aliénation mentale, and a common term in French for "madman" is aliéné.[1]

Philosophy

The term "alienation" is the usual translation for the German term Entfremdung which features in the philosophy of Hegel and Marx.

However, the Lacanian concept of alienation differs greatly from the ways that the term is employed in the Hegelian and Marxist tradition.[2]

Subject

For Lacan, alienation is not an accident that befalls the subject and which can be transcended, but an essential constitutive feature of the subject.

The subject is fundamentally split, alienated from himself, and there is no escape from this division, no possibility of "wholeness" or synthesis.

Ego

Alienation is an inevitable consequence of the process by which the ego is constituted by identification with the counterpart:

"The initial synthesis of the ego is essentially an alter ego, it is alienated."[3]

In Rimbaud's words, "I is an other."[4]

Imaginary

Thus alienation belongs to the imaginary order:

"Alienation is constitutive of the imaginary order. Alienation is the imaginary as such."[5]

Psychosis

Although alienation is an essential characteristic of all subjectivity, psychosis represents a more extreme form of alienation.

"Extimacy"

Lacan coined the term "extimacy" to designate the nature of this alienation, in which alterity inhabits the innermost core of the subject.

Separation

Lacan devotes the whole of chapter 16 of The Seminar, Book XI, The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis (1964a) to a discussion of alienation and the related concept of separation.

See Also

References

  1. Lacan, Jacques. Écrits. Paris: Seuil, 1966. p. 154
  2. Lacan, Jacques. The Seminar. Book XI. The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis, 1964. Trans. Alan Sheridan. London: Hogarth Press and Institute of Psycho-Analysis, 1977. p. 215
  3. Lacan, Jacques. The Seminar. Book III. The Psychoses, 1955-56. Trans. Russell Grigg. London: Routledge, 1993. p. 39
  4. Lacan, Jacques. Écrits: A Selection. Trans. Alan Sheridan. London: Tavistock Publications, 1977. p. 23
  5. Lacan, Jacques. The Seminar. Book III. The Psychoses, 1955-56. Trans. Russell Grigg. London: Routledge, 1993. p. 146