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==Symbolic Father==
Hence much of [[Lacan]]'s work is aimed at shifting the emphasis in [[psychoanalytic theory]] from the [[mother]]-[[child]] relation (the [[preoedipal, the prototype of the [[imaginary]]) back onto the role of the [[father]] (the [[Oedipus complex]], the prototype of the [[symbolic]]).
==Desire of the Mother===
According to [[Freud]], a [[woman]]'s [[desire]] to have a [[child]] is rooted in her [[envy]] of the [[man]]'s [[penis]].
When the [[girl]] first realizes that she does not possess a penis, she feels deprived of something valuable, and seeks to compensate for this by obtaining a child as a symbolic substitute for the penis she has been denied.<ref>{{F}} "[[Works of Sigmund Freud|The Dissolution of the Oedipus Complex]]," 1924d. [[SE]] XIX, 173. 1924d</ref>
[[Lacan]] follows [[Freud]], arguing that the [[child]] always represents for the [[mother]] a substitute for the [[symbolic]] [[phallus]] which she [[lacks]] (see [[privation]]).
The [[child]] then seeks to [[satisfy]] the [[mother]]'s [[desire]] by [[identification|identifying]] with the [[imaginary]] [[phallus]] (or by [[identifying]] with the [[phallic]] [[mother]], the [[mother]] imagined as possessing the [[phallus]]).
In this game of "to be or not to be the phallus," the [[child]] is completely at the mercy of the capricious [[desire]] of the [[mother]], [[helplessness|helpless]] in the face of her omnipotence.<ref>{{S4}} p.69, 187</ref>
However, this sense of powerlessness may not give rise to much [[anxiety]] at first; for a time, the [[child]] experiences his attempts at being the [[phallus]] as a relatively satisfying game of seduction.
Finally, it is the [[mother]]'s [[presence]] which testifies to this [[love]], even if she does not bring any real object with her.
[[Freud]] showed how the [[child]] attempts to cope with this loss by symbolizing the [[[mother]]'s [[presence]] and [[absence]] in games and [[language]].
The [[mother]] which itnerests [[psychoanalytic theory]] is thus above all the [[symbolic]] [[mother]], the [[mother]] in her role as the primordial [[Other]].
==Imaginary==
* [[Other]]
* [[Phallus]]
==References==
<references/>
