Changes

Jacques [[Lacan ]] differentiated between an [[imaginary ]] identification, that forms the ego from a [[symbolic ]] one that founds the [[subject]]. He discussed the first in his essay on the "[[Mirror ]] [[Stage]]" (1936) and he examined the second primarily in his [[seminar ]] on [[Identification]] (1961-1962).

Imaginary identification involves the [[image ]] of one's "fellow [[being]]." Before the subject develops the proper neurological connection, he grasps the [[unity ]] of his [[body ]] image by [[identifying ]] with the image of the [[other]], the [[ideal ]] ego. Thus the subject escapes the [[feeling ]] of having a [[fragmented body]]. [[The mirror stage ]] is also the source of the [[aggressive ]] tension that characterizes relations with the one's fellow being, and it is the source of [[desire ]] as the other's.

[[Symbolic identification]], or "[[signifier ]] identification," involves an ideal signifier—an insignia of the Other or a [[unary ]] trait—as the nucleus of the [[ego-ideal ]] that the subject depends on.

This [[situation ]] is modeled on [[Freud]]'s second [[form ]] of identification, that is, an identification by adopting a single [[trait ]] taken from the [[object]]. In fact, imaginary identification depends on symbolic identification. In the mirror stage, the [[infant ]] looks for a [[sign ]] from the [[maternal ]] Other holding him up to the mirror in [[order ]] to confirm that the image is his. Behind the signifier of the ego-ideal are the [[Name]]-of-the-[[Father ]] and [[the symbolic ]] [[phallus]].

A subject's [[sexual ]] [[identity ]] does not depend on his relation to an image, but on his [[position ]] in relation to the symbolic phallus—a [[male ]] subject has it, while the [[female ]] subject does not have it, but is it.

In the last years of his Seminar lectures, Lacan introduced the [[idea ]] of identification with a [[symptom ]] and added it to the notions of imaginary and symbolic identification.

# [[Lacan, Jacques]]. (2002). The mirror stage as formative of the I function as revealed in [[psychoanalytic ]] [[experience]]. In [[Écrits]]: A selection. ([[Bruce Fink]], Trans.). New York: W. W. Norton. (Original [[work ]] published 1949).# ——. Le Séminaire-Livre IX, [[L'identification ]] (1961-62). (unpublished seminar).