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[[Freud]] uses the term '[[inversion]]' to designate [[homosexuality]], the idea being that [[homosexuality]] is the inverse of [[heterosexuality]].
[[Lacan]] uses the term in this sense too in his early works.<ref>Lacan. 1938. p.109</ref>
However, in [[Lacan]]'s post-war works the term is used in quite a different sense.
[[Inversion]] then usually refers to a characteristic of the [[specular iamge]].
What appears on one side of the [[real]] [[body]] appears on the other side of the [[image]] of the [[body]] reflected in the [[mirror]].<ref>Lacan. 1951b. p.15</ref>
By extension, [[inversion]] becomes a quality of all [[imaginary]] phenomena, such as [[transitivism]].
Thus in [[schema L]], the [[imaginary]] is represented as a barrier blockign the [[discourse]] of the [[Other]], causing this [[discourse]] to arrive at the [[subject]] ''in an inverted form''.
Hence [[Lacan]]'s definition of [[analytic]] [[communication]] in which the sender receives his own [[message]] in an inverted form.
In 1957, both senses of the term are brought together in [[Lacan]]'s discussion of [[Leonardo da Vinci]].
Taking up [[Freud]]'s argument about [[Leonardo]]'s [[homosexuality]],<ref>Freud. 1910c.</ref> [[Lacan]] goes on to argue that [[Leonardo]]'s [[specular]] [[identification]] was highly unusual in that it resulted in an [[inversion]] of the positions (on [[schema L) of the [[ego]] and the [[little other]].<ref>{{S4}} p.433-4</ref>
