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captation (captation) The French substantive captation is a neologism
coined by the French psychoanalysts Edouard Pichon and Odile Codet, from
the verb capter (which Forrester translates as 'to captate', reviving an obsolete
English verb in a quasi-technical sense - see S1, 146 and note). It was adopted
by Lacan in 1948 to refer to the imaginary effects of the SPECULAR IMAGE (see E,
18), and occurs regularly in his work from this point on. The double sense of
the French term nicely indicates the ambiguous nature of the power of the
specular image. On the one hand, it has the sense of 'captivation', thus
expressing the fascinating, seductive power of the image. On the other hand,
the term also conveys the idea of 'capture', which evokes the more sinister
power of the image to imprison the subject in a disabling fixation.
coined by the French psychoanalysts Edouard Pichon and Odile Codet, from
the verb capter (which Forrester translates as 'to captate', reviving an obsolete
English verb in a quasi-technical sense - see S1, 146 and note). It was adopted
by Lacan in 1948 to refer to the imaginary effects of the SPECULAR IMAGE (see E,
18), and occurs regularly in his work from this point on. The double sense of
the French term nicely indicates the ambiguous nature of the power of the
specular image. On the one hand, it has the sense of 'captivation', thus
expressing the fascinating, seductive power of the image. On the other hand,
the term also conveys the idea of 'capture', which evokes the more sinister
power of the image to imprison the subject in a disabling fixation.
