24,656
edits
Changes
no edit summary
{{Top}}lack of object|privation{{Bottom}}
==Jacques Lacan==
===Three Types of Lack===
In his [[seminar]] of 1956-7, [[Seminar IV|Object Relations]], [[Lacan]] distinguishes between three types of "[[lack]] of [[object]]":
# [[privation]],
# [[frustration]] and
Whereas the [[boy]] develops a [[fear]] of having his [[penis]] cut off, the [[girl]] envies the [[boy]] his possession of the [[penis]], which she sees as a highly desirable organ.
The [[girl]] blames the [[mother]] for depriving her of a [[penis]], and redirects her affections to the father in the hope that he will provide her with a [[child]] as a [[symbolic]] [[substitute]] for the [[penis]] she [[lacks]].<ref>Freud{{F}} (1924d) ''An Autobiographical Study'', 1924d[[SE]] XX, 3.</ref>
[[Privation]], then, refers to the [[female]]'s [[lack]] of a [[penis]], which is clearly a [[lack]] in the [[Real]].
Thus what is [[lacking]] is not the [[real]] organ, for, [[biologically]] speaking, the vagina is not incomplete without one; what is [[lacking]] is a [[symbolic]] object, the [[symbolic]] [[phallus]].
Its [[symbolic]] nature is confirmed by the fact that it can be substituted by a [[child]] in the [[girl]]'s [[unconscious]]; in appeasing her [[penis envy]] by [[desiring]] a [[child]], [[Freud]] argues, the [[girl]] "[[slip]]s - along the lines of a [[symbolic]] equation, one might say - from the [[penis]] to a [[baby]]."<ref>Freud, {{F}} (1924d: ) "The Dissolution of the Oedipus Complex"; [[SE ]] XIX, 178-9</ref>
[[Freud]] argues that the little [[girl]] blames her [[mother]] for depriving her of a [[penis]].
