Talk:Seminar II

The Ego in Freud’s Theory and in the Technique of Psychoanalysis (Le moi dans la théorie de Freud et dans la technique de la psychanalyse) is the title of Jacques Lacan’s second seminar, delivered between November 1954 and June 1955 at the Hôpital Sainte-Anne in Paris. It builds on the theoretical foundations laid in Seminar I and articulates a rigorous critique of ego psychology, reasserting the centrality of the unconscious, the symbolic order, and the divided subject as elaborated by Sigmund Freud.

This seminar is widely regarded as a turning point in Lacan’s teaching, marking a transition from a focus on the Imaginary and the mirror stage to a sustained development of the Symbolic and its implications for psychoanalytic technique. Seminar II is also significant for its introduction of structural diagrams such as Schema L, as well as its reflections on classic Freudian texts like Beyond the Pleasure Principle, The Ego and the Id, and Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego.

Jacques Lacan's Seminars : I · II · III · IV · V · VI · VII · VIII · IX · X · XI · XII · XIII · XIV · XV · XVI · XVII · XVIII · XIX · XX · XXI · XXII · XXIII · XXIV · XXV · XXVI · XXVII I. Freud's technical writings II. The Ego in Freud's Theory and in the Technique of Psychoanalysis III. The Psychoses IV. The Object Relations V. The Formations of the Unconscious VI. Desire and its Interpretation VII. The Ethics of Psychoanalysis VIII. Transference IX. Identification The Names of the Father X. Anxiety XI. The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis XII. Crucial Problems for Psychoanalysis XIII. The Object of Psychoanalysis XIV. The Logic of Fantasy XV. The Psychoanalytic Act XVI. From One Other to the Other XVII. The Reverse of Psychoanalysis XVIII. On a Discourse That Would Not Be Semblance XIX. Or Worse XX. Encore XXV. The Moment of Concluding XXVII. Dissolution ← Seminar I Seminar III →

The Ego in Freud's Theory and in the Technique of Psychoanalysis
Seminar II
Cover of the English edition (1988)
French Title	Le moi dans la théorie de Freud et dans la technique de la psychanalyse
English Title	The Ego in Freud's Theory and in the Technique of Psychoanalysis
Seminar Information
Seminar Date(s)	November 1954 – June 1955
Session Count	26 sessions
Location	Hôpital Sainte-Anne
Psychoanalytic Content
Key Concepts	Mirror stage • Imaginary • Ego • Symbolic order • Schema L
Notable Themes	Ego psychology critique, subjectivity, Freudian metapsychology, unconscious structure
Freud Texts	Beyond the Pleasure Principle, The Ego and the Id, Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego
Theoretical Context
Period	Early period
Register	Imaginary/Symbolic
Chronology
Preceded by	Seminar I
Followed by	Seminar III

Background

In July 1953, Lacan—alongside Françoise Dolto and Serge Leclaire—seceded from the Société Psychanalytique de Paris (SPP) to form the Société Française de Psychanalyse (SFP), following tensions around the theoretical orientation and clinical practice of psychoanalysis in France. The dominant ego-psychological model, which privileged the conscious ego and adaptation, stood in contrast to Lacan’s desire to return to Freud’s discovery of the unconscious.

At the 1953 Rome Congress, Lacan delivered his pivotal address, "The Function and Field of Speech and Language in Psychoanalysis," where he called for a renewed emphasis on the function of language in the structuring of subjectivity. This intervention initiated what came to be known as Lacan’s “return to Freud,” a systematic rereading of Freudian theory through the lenses of linguistics, philosophy, and structuralism.

Structure and Methodology

Seminar II consists of 26 sessions that unfold Lacan’s inquiry into the structure of the ego, its relation to the unconscious, and its function in analytic technique. The seminar is both theoretical and clinical, weaving commentary on Freud’s texts with structural models and practical reflections on analytic resistance, transference, and speech.

Lacan frames his approach around the idea that the ego is a misrecognized entity rooted in the Imaginary. He contrasts this with the Symbolic, which defines the subject as a function of language and desire. Throughout the seminar, Lacan repositions the locus of truth from the ego to the unconscious, which he famously states is “structured like a language.”

Freud and the Critique of Ego Psychology

One of Lacan’s main objectives in Seminar II is to distance psychoanalytic practice from the American school of ego psychology, particularly the work of Heinz Hartmann and Anna Freud. Ego psychology treated the ego as an autonomous and adaptive function capable of integration and mastery. Lacan rejects this view, arguing that such a focus displaces the radical implications of Freud’s metapsychology.

He turns to three key Freudian texts:

• In Beyond the Pleasure Principle (1920), Freud introduces the death drive, a concept that challenges the ego’s coherence and reveals a tendency toward repetition and destruction that eludes pleasure and adaptation.

• In The Ego and the Id (1923), Freud outlines a structural topography in which the ego emerges as a product of identifications and as a surface exposed to both internal conflict and external demands.

• In Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego (1921), Freud highlights the role of identification in the formation of the ego, a process which is inherently alienating and rooted in the desire of the Other.

Lacan reads these texts as undermining the autonomous ego, instead presenting it as a precipitate of identifications, images, and unconscious forces.

The Mirror Stage and Imaginary Identification

The mirror stage remains a central reference in Seminar II. Lacan elaborates how the child’s initial identification with its own specular image constitutes the ego as an alienated formation. This identification, which occurs before the ego is fully differentiated from the body, produces a gestalt—a coherent image that misrepresents the child’s motor and sensory incoherence.

"The ego is constituted through a fundamentally alienating process of misrecognition. What is recognized in the mirror is not the subject’s truth, but a fiction."

This Imaginary construction forms the basis for rivalry, aggression, and narcissism. The ego, then, is not the seat of rationality or self-presence, but the locus of illusion and defensive investment. Lacan’s psychoanalytic ethics insists that analytic work must bypass the ego’s defenses in order to reach the subject of the unconscious.

Resistance and the Role of the Symbolic

Lacan famously states that “analysis deals with resistances.” Resistance, for him, arises not from the id, as Freud initially thought, but from the ego itself. Because the ego is a site of misrecognition, it resists what threatens its coherence—namely, the unconscious.

To break through this resistance, Lacan emphasizes the importance of the Symbolic order. The Symbolic is the register of language, law, and the unconscious structured as a network of signifiers. It is only through the Symbolic that the subject can emerge in speech beyond the Imaginary narcissism of the ego.

Irma's Dream and the Real

One of the key case studies in this seminar is Freud’s dream of Irma's injection. Lacan interprets this dream as a confrontation with the Real, a dimension that resists symbolization and eludes Imaginary representation.

"In the dream, the unconscious is what is outside all of the subjects. [...] What is at stake is beyond the ego, what in the subject is of the subject and not of the subject: the unconscious."

The Real, as Lacan defines it here, is the point where language fails, the limit of meaning, and the locus of trauma. It is evoked in Irma’s throat—a horrifying image that signifies the inassimilable kernel of enjoyment (jouissance) and suffering that analysis confronts.

The Purloined Letter and the Symbolic Circuit

Lacan’s reading of Poe’s The Purloined Letter becomes a pivotal moment in his theorization of the signifier. The letter in the story functions not as a container of meaning, but as a structural element whose position determines the subject.

"The letter is the unconscious. As it moves, the characters are transformed; each becomes someone else in relation to it."

This reading prefigures Lacan’s famous formula that “the unconscious is structured like a language.” The subject is not a self-present entity, but a position in a symbolic network, subject to the play of the signifier.

Schema L

Lacan introduces Schema L in this seminar to formalize the relation between the ego, the other, the subject, and the Other (with a capital "O"). The schema consists of four positions:

• S – the barred subject ($)
• A – the big Other (locus of language)
• a – the ego (Imaginary)
• a’ – the other (mirror image)

The key function of Schema L is to demonstrate how the subject is not identical with the ego. The symbolic line from S to A—the route to truth—is blocked by the Imaginary relation between a and a’. The analytic task is to cut through the Imaginary to allow the subject’s speech to be addressed to the Other, thereby opening the possibility of truth and transformation.

The End of Analysis

Lacan’s notion of the end of analysis is also reformulated in this seminar. In opposition to ego psychology’s goal of ego-strengthening, Lacan sees the end of analysis as a point where the subject assumes its division and opens itself to the Other’s desire.

Invoking Freud’s dictum, Wo Es war, soll Ich werden (“Where it was, I shall become”), Lacan proposes a reversal:

"It is not the Ich (ego) that must take the place of the Es (id), but the subject that must be allowed to speak where It speaks. At the end of analysis, it is 'It' (ça) that must be called on to speak."

Legacy

Seminar II represents a major development in Lacan’s reconfiguration of psychoanalysis. It sets the stage for the more formal structuralism of his later work, while retaining the clinical urgency that distinguishes his teaching. The seminar anticipates themes such as the function of the letter, the real of jouissance, and the ethics of desire—all central to Lacan’s subsequent seminars.

See also

• Jacques Lacan
• Seminar I
• Seminar III
• Mirror stage
• Symbolic order
• Imaginary
• Real
• Schema L
• The Purloined Letter (seminar)
• Freud and Lacan
• Unconscious
• Ego psychology

Further reading

• Lacan, Jacques. The Seminar, Book II: The Ego in Freud’s Theory and in the Technique of Psychoanalysis. Ed. Jacques-Alain Miller. Trans. Sylvana Tomaselli. New York: Norton, 1991.
• Feldstein, Richard, Bruce Fink, and Maire Jaanus (eds.). Reading Seminars I and II: Lacan’s Return to Freud. SUNY Press, 1996.

• Roudinesco, Élisabeth. Jacques Lacan. Columbia University Press, 1997.
• Fink, Bruce. The Lacanian Subject: Between Language and Jouissance. Princeton University Press, 1995.
• Evans, Dylan. An Introductory Dictionary of Lacanian Psychoanalysis. Routledge, 1996.