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When a human being is reduced to a state of helplessness, subjected to a primal kind of passivity by the impositions of others, he or she may seek to regain mastery through repetition of the experience. For Kreisler et al. (1966), too much distress of this kind may cause psychosomatic disorders; for Tustin (1972), the result may be recourse to autistic defenses.
==More==
HELPLESSNESS
The term '[[helplessness]' ([[French]]: ''[[dE(from lower left to upper right)tresse''; [[German]]: ''[[Hilflosigkeit]]'') is used in [[psychoanalysis]] to denote the state of the newborn [[infant]] who is incapable of carrying out the specific [[action]]s required to [[satisfy]] its own [[need]]s, and so is completely dependent on other people (especially the [[mother]]).
The [[helplessness]] of the [[human]] [[infant]] is grounded in its 'prematurity' of birth, a fact which was pointed out by [[Freud]] and which [[Lacan]] takes up in his early writings.
Compared to other animals such as apes, the [[human]] [[infant]] is relatively unformed when it is born, especially with respect to motor coordination.
This means that it is more dependent than other animals, and for a longer time, on its parents.
[[Lacan]] follows [[Freud]] in highlighting the importance of the initial dependence of the [[human]] [[infant]] on the [[mother]].
[[Lacan]]'s originality lies in the way he draws attention to "the fact that this dependence is maintained by a world of [[language]].<ref>{{E}} p.309</ref>
The [[mother]] [[interpret]]s the [[infant]]'s cries as hunger, tiredness, loneliness, etc. and retroactively determines their [[meaning]] (see [[punctuation).
The [[child]]'s [[helplessness]] contrasts with the omnipotence of the [[mother]], who can decide whether or not to [[satisfy]] the [[child]]'s [[need]]s.<ref>{{S4}} p.69, 185</ref>
(The recognition of this contrast engenders a depressive effect in the [[child]].<ref>{{S4}} p.186</ref>)
[[Lacan]] also uses the concept of [[helplessness] to illustrate the sense of [[abandonment]] and [[subjective destitution]] that the [[analysand]] feels at the [[end of analysis]].
<blockquote>"At the end of a [[training]] [[analysis]] the [[subect]] should reach and know the domain and level of the experience of absolute disarray."<ref>{{S7}} p.304</ref></blockquote>
The [[end of analysis]] is not conceived of by [[Lacan]] as the realization of some blissful plenitude, but quite the contrary, as a moment when the [[subject]] comes to terms with his utter solitude.
However, whereas the [[infant]] can rely on its [[mother]]'s [[help]], the [[analysand]] at the [[end of analysis]] "can expect [[help]] from no one."<ref>{{S7}} p.304</ref>
If this seems to present a particularly ascetic view of [[psychoanalytic treatment]], this is exactly how [[Lacan]] wishes it to be seen; [[psychoanalysis]] is, in [[Lacan]]'s words, a "long subjective acesis."<ref>{{E}} p.105</ref>
==See Also==
* [[Alpha function]]
