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{{Top}} adapt|adaptation {{Bottom}}
==Biology==
The concept of [[adaptation]] is a [[biology|biological]] [[:category:concepts|concept]]; [[biology|organism]]s are supposed to be driven to [[adapt]] themselves to fit the [[biology|environment]].
[[Ego-psychology]] explain [[neurotic]] [[symptom]]s in terms of maladaptive [[behaviour]].
==Jacques Lacan==
From his early work in the 1930s on, [[Lacan]] opposes any attempt to explain human phenomena in terms of [[adaptation]].<ref>{{Ec}} p.158; {{Ec}} p.171-2</ref>
This forms a constant theme in [[Lacan]]'s work; in 1955, for example, he states that "the dimension discovered by analysis is the opposite of anything which progresses through adaptation."<ref>{{S2}} p.86</ref>
He takes this view for several reasons:
===OneReality===The stress on the [[adaptation|adaptive function ]] of the [[ego]] misses the [[ego]]'s [[alienation|alienatingfunction]] function and is based on a simplistic and unproblematic view of '"[[reality]]'".
[[Reality ]] is not a simple, objective thing to which the [[ego ]] must [[adapt]], but is itself a product of the [[ego]]'s fictional [[fiction]]al [[mirror stage|misrepresentations ]] and projections[[projection]]s.
<blockquote>"[Therefore "] it is not a question of adapting to it [reality], but of showing it [the ego] that it is only too well adapted, since it assists in the construction of that very reality."<ref>{{E}} p.236</ref></blockquote>
The task of [[psychoanalysis]] is rather to subvert the [[illusory]] sense of [[adaptation]], since this blocks access to the [[unconscious]].
===TwoAnalyst===
To set [[adaptation]] as the [[aim]] of the [[treatment]] is to turn the [[analyst]] into the arbiter of the [[patient]]'s [[adaptation]].
[[reality]] onto the [[patient]]; this is not [[psychoanalysis]] but [[suggestion]].
===ThreeGap===The idea of [[harmony]] between the [[biology|organism ]] and its [[biology|environment]], implicit in the concept of [[adaptation]], is inapplicable to [[human beings ]] [[being]]s because [[human|man]]'s inscription in the [[symbolic]] [[order]] [[nature|de-naturalises ]] him and means that '"in man the [[imaginary]] relation [to nature] has deviated'". Whereas "all animal machines are strictly riveted to the conditions of the external environment,"<ref>{{S2}} p. 322</ref> in the [[human]] [[being]] there is "a certain biological gap."<ref>{{S2}} p. 323</ref>
Any attempt to regain [[harmony]] with [[nature]] overlooks the essentially excessive [[drive]] potential summed up in the [[death drive]].
[[Human beings ]] [[being]]s are essentially [[maladaptive]].
[[Lacan]] argues that the stress put by [[ego-psychology]] on the [[adaptation]] of the [[patient]] to [[reality]] reduces [[psychoanalysis]] to an instrument of social control and conformity.
--
[[Lacan]] regards it as significant that the [[adaptation]] theme was developed by the European psychoanalysts [[psychoanalyst]]s who had emigrated to the USA in the late 1930s.
These analysts [[analyst]]s felt not only that they had to [[adapt ]] to life in the USA, but also that they ahd had to [[adapt ]] [[psychoanalysis ]] to American tastes.<ref>{{E}} p.115</ref>
==See Also==
{{See}}
* [[Analyst]]
* [[Biology]]
* [[Death drive]]
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* [[Ego]]
* [[Ego-psychology]]
* [[Factor C]]
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* [[Gap]]
* [[Nature]]
* [[Neurosis]]
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* [[Pleasure principle]]
* [[Psychoanalysis]]
* [[Suggestion]]
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* [[Symptom]]
* [[Treatment]]
* [[Unconscious]]
{{Also}}
==References==
[[Category:Concepts]]
[[Category:Terms]]
{{OK}}
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