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[[File:Lacan-opticalmodel.jpg|thumb|Lacan's optical schema]][[Lacan]] borrowed his [[optical]] [[schema]] from [[physics]]. He used it to illustrate the [[role]] of the [[real]] [[Other]] in constructing both the [[body]] and the [[specular]] [[image]] as the [[model]] for the ego.
Lacan introduced this schema in his [[seminar]] of 1953-1954, on <i>[[Freud]]'s Papers on [[Technique]]</i>. He took his cue from Freud's reference to an optical schema in T<i>he [[Interpretation]] of [[Dreams]]</i> (Freud, 1900a, p. 536; Lacan, 1953-54, 74-76). Lacan first used the schema to illustrate the reciprocal play of the real, the [[imaginary]], and the [[symbolic]] in Melanie [[Klein]]'s [[case]] of "Little Dick."
The [[illusory]] [[presence]] of the flowers in the vase represented a [[baby]]'s relation to his body, but this is something the baby cannot see. To create a "[[substitute]] for the [[mirror]]-[[stage]]" (1953-54, p. 74), Lacan introduced a plane mirror.
In the [[virtual]] [[space]] beyond the mirror, a [[specular image]] is created, <i>i</i>′ <i>(a)</i>, and this is where the baby as [[subject]] recognizes the image as its ego. This represents the [[dimension]] of radical [[alienation]] in ego [[formation]] as it occurs in relation to the image of a fellow being—a [[process]] that is specific to secondary [[narcissism]] and the [[ideal]] ego.
[[File:Complete and simplified optical schemas.png|thumb|Schemas from Seminar X: Anxiety]]
Lacan returned to the optical schema in his seminar on <i>[[Transference]]</i> (1960-61), but then the plane mirror shows the effect that the parental Other's look has on the baby's organism. This look allows the baby to [[sense]] its own body, modeled on its specular image. Lacan even gave the Other a role in the formation of primary narcissism. This schema allows for an approach to the [[treatment]] of early psychopathologies prior to the [[mirror stage]] (Laznik-Penot, 1993).
Lacan used the plane mirror in two different ways. Sometimes it referred to the mirror of [[the mirror stage]], still very much centered on the [[structuring]] [[character]] of the image itself. And sometimes it referred to a mirror without a reflection, that is, a [[representation]] of the Other's [[gaze]]. Indeed, our [[understanding]] of this schema has been modified [[retroactively]] by the introduction of the [[concept]] of the [[big Other]]; nevertheless, it is still most often [[understood]] in its strictly intrapsychic dimension.
Professor of [[Psychoanalysis ]] at Ghent [[University ]] Stijn Vanheule has put together a YouTube video demonstrating how the optical [[illusion ]] of the inverted vase Lacan discusses in [[Seminar I ]] works.
==See Also==
<references />
# [[Freud, Sigmund]]. (1900a). The [[interpretation of dreams]]. SE, 4-5: 1-751.
# Klein, Melanie. (1930). [https://nonoedipal.files.wordpress.com/2009/11/the-importance-of-symbol-formation-in-the-development-of-the-ego.pdf The importance of symbol-formation in the development of the ego]. International Journal of [[Psycho]]-[[Analysis]], 11:24-39
# [[Lacan, Jacques]]. (1988). [[The Seminar]] of [[Jacques Lacan]], Book I, [[Freud's Papers on Technique]] (1953-1954). (John Forrester, Trans.). New York: Norton.
# ——. Le Séminaire-Livre IX, L'[[identification]] (1961-62). (unpublished seminar).
