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The infant recognizes not only that it is a particular shape, but also grasps that this shape has a special--in fact transformative--significance.
==More==
GESTALT
''[[Gestalt]]'' is a [[German]] word meaning an organized pattern or [[whole]] which has properties other than those of its components in isolation.
The experimental study of [[gestalt]]s began in 1910 with the study of certain phenomena of perception, and led to a [[school]] of thought known as "[[gestalt]] [[psychology]]" which was based on a holistic concept of [[mind]] and [[body]] and which stressed the [[psychological]] importance of [[body]] presentation.
These ideas formed the basis of [[Gestalt]] [[therapy]] as developed by [[Paul Goodman]], [[Fritz Perls]] and [[Ralph Hefferline]].
When [[Lacan]] refers to the [[gestalt]], he refers specifically to one kind of oganized pattern, namely the [[visual]] [[image]] of another member of the same species, which is perceived as a [[unified]] [[whole]].
Such an [[image]] is a [[gestalt]] because it has an effect which none of its component parts have in isolation; this effect is to act as a "releasing mechanism" ([[French]]: ''dEclencheur'') which triggers certain [[instinct]]ual responses, such as reproductive behavior.<ref>{{S1}} p.121f</ref>
In other words, when an animal perceives a [[unified]] [[image]] of another member of its species, it responds in certan [[instinct]]ual ways.
[[Lacan]] gives many examples from [[ethology]] of such [[instinct]]ual responses to [[images]], but his main interest is in the way the [[gestalt]] functions in [[human]] beings.
For [[human]]s the [[body]] [[image]] is also a [[gestalt]] which produces [[instinct]]ual responses, especially [[sexual]] ones, but the [[power]] of the [[image]] is also more than merely [[instinct]]ual; it constitutes the essential captivating [[power]] of the [[specular iamge]] (see [[captation]]).
It is by [[identifying]] with the [[unified]] [[gestalt]] of the [[body]] [[image]] that the [[ego]] is constantly threatened by [[fear]]s of disintegration, which manifest themselves in [[image]]s of the [[fragmented body]]; these [[image]]s represent the opposite of the [[unified]] [[gestalt]] of the [[body]] [[image]].
