Talk:Mirror stage

"The mirror stage as formative of the function fo the I as revealed in psychoanalytic experience" is an essay about the formation of identity, the moment of constitution of the self.

Lacan begins his account with the first months of the infant's life. The infant is relatively ucoordinated, helpless and dependent. Btween the age of six and eighteen months the infant become s aware, through seeings its image in the mirror, of its own body as a totality. The human infant seems to go through an initial stage of confusing the image with reality, and may try to grasp hold of the iamge behind the mirror, or seize hold of the support adult.

Then comes the discovery of the existence of an image with its own properties.