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It is not until the mid-1950s that the castration complex comes to play a prominent role in Lacan's teaching, primarily in [[the seminar of 1956-7]].
It is in this seminar that Lacan identifies castration as one of three forms of '[[lack]] of [[object]]', the others being [[frustration]] and [[privation]].
Unlike frustration (which is an imaginary lack of a real object) and privation (which is a real lack of a symbolic object), castration is defined by Lacan as a [[symbolic]] lack of an imaginary object; castration does not bear on the penis as a real organ, but on the [[imaginary]] [[phallus]].<ref>{{S4}} p.219</ref> Lacan's account of the castration complex is thus raised out of the dimension of simple [[biology]] or anatomy: 'It is insoluble by any reduction to biological givens.'<ref>{{E}} p.282</ref> Following Freud, Lacan argues that the castration complex is the pivot on which the whole Oedipus complex turns.<ref>{{S4, }} p.216</ref>
However, whereas Freud argues that these two complexes are articulated differently in boys and girls, Lacan argues that the castration complex always denotes the final moment of the Oedipus complex in both sexes.
Lacan divides the Oedipus complex into three 'times'.<ref>{{L}} Lacan, 1957-8: seminar of 22 January 1958</ref>
# In the first time, the child perceives that the [[mother]] desires something beyond the child himself - namely, the [[imaginary]] [[phallus]] - and then tries to be the phallus for the mother (see [[preoedipal phase]]).
