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==Definition==
Lacan's use of the term '[[Real]]' (rÈel) as a substantive dates back to an early paper, published in 1936. The term was popular among certain philosophers at the time, and is the focus of a work by Emile Meyerson.<ref> (which Lacan refers to in the 1936 paper; Ec, 86</ref> Meyerson defines the [[Real]] as 'an ontological absolute, a true being-in-itself'.<ref>Meyerson, 1925: 79; quoted in Roustang, 1986: 61</ref> In speaking of 'the [[Real]]', then, Lacan is following a common practice in one strand of early twentieth-century philosophy. However, while this may be Lacan's starting point, the term undergoes many shifts in meaning and usage throughout his work.
At first the [[Real]] is simply opposed to the realm of the image, which seems to locate it in the realm of being, beyond appearances.<ref>Ec, 85</ref> However, the fact that even at this early point Lacan distinguishes between the [[Real]] and 'the true' indicates that the [[Real]] is already prey to a certain ambiguity.<ref>Ec, 75</ref>
Whereas the [[Symbolic]] is a set of differentiated, discrete elements called signifiers, the [[Real]] is, in itself, undifferentiated; '''The the [[Real]] is absolutely without fissure.'<ref>S2, 97</ref> It is the [[Symbolic]] which introduces '' is a term used by cut in the psychoanalyst [[Jacques LacanReal]] ' in his theory the process of psychic structuressignification: 'it is the world of words that creates the world of things - things originally confused in the hic et nunc of the all in the process of coming-into-being. '<ref>E, 65</ref>
In these formulations of the period 1953-5, the [[Real]] emerges as that which is outside language and inassimilable to symbolisation. It is 'that which resists symbolization absolutely';<ref>Sl, 66</ref> or, again, the [[Real]] is 'the domain of whatever subsists outside symbolisation.'<ref>Ec, 388</ref> This theme remains a constant throughout the rest of Lacan's work, and leads Lacan to link the [[Real]] with the concept of impossibility. The [[Real]] is 'the impossible'<ref>Sl l, 167</ref> because it is impossible to imagine, impossible to integrate into the [[Symbolic]] order, and impossible to attain in any way. It is this character of impossibility and of resistance to symbolisation which lends the [[Real]] its essentially traumatic quality. Thus in his reading of the case of Little Hans <ref>Freud, 1909b</ref> in the seminar of 1956-7, Lacan distinguishes two [[Real]] elements which intrude and disrupt the child's [[Imaginary]] preoedipal harmony: the [[Real]] penis which begins to make itself felt in infantile masturbation, and the newly born sister.<ref>S4, 308-9</ref>
The [[Real]] also has connotations of matter, implying a material substrate underlying the [[Imaginary]] and the [[Symbolic]] (see [[Materialism]]). The connotations of matter also link the concept of the [[Real]] to the realm of [[biology]] and to the body in its brute physicality (as opposed to the [[Imaginary]] and [[Symbolic]] functions of the body). For example the [[Real]] father is the biological father, and the [[Real]] phallus is the physical penis as opposed to the [[Symbolic]] and [[Imaginary]] functions of this organ.
[[Anxiety]] and trauma
The [[Real]] is the object of anxiety; it lacks any possible mediation, and is thus 'the essential object which isn't an object any longer, but this something faced with which all words cease and all categories fail, the object of anxiety par excellence' (S2, 164). It is the missed encounter with this [[Real]] object which presents itself in the form of trauma (Sll, 55). It is the tyche which lies 'beyond the [[[symbolic]]] automaton.'<ref>S11, 53</ref> (see [[chance]]).
==Hallucinations==
When something cannot be integrated in the [[Symbolic]] order, as in [[psychosis]], it may return in the [[Real]] in the form of a hallucination.<ref>S3, 321</ref>
The preceding comments trace out some of the main uses to which Lacan puts the category of the [[Real]], but are far from covering all the complexities of this term. In fact, Lacan takes pains to ensure that the [[Real]] remains the most elusive and mysterious of the three orders, by speaking of it less than of the other orders, and by making it the site of a radical indeterminacy. Thus it is never completely clear whether the [[Real]] is external or internal, or whether it is unknowable or amenable to reason.
==External / internal==
On the one hand, the term 'the [[Real]]' seems to imply a simplistic notion of an objective, external reality, a material substrate which exists in itself, independently of any observer. On the other hand, such a 'naive' view of the [[Real]] is subverted by the fact that the [[Real]] also includes such things as hallucinations and traumatic dreams. The [[Real]] is thus both inside and outside.<ref>S7, 118; see [[extimacy]]</ref> (extimitÈ). This ambiguity reflects the ambiguity inherent in Freud's own use of the two German terms for reality (Wirklichkeit and Realit‰t) and the distinction Freud draws between material reality and psychical reality.<ref>Freud, 1900a: SE V, 620</ref>
==Real and Psychoanalytic TreatmentUnknowable/rational==The concept of On the real also allowed Lacan to approach questions of anxiety and the symptom in a new way. In the final years of his teaching, Lacan took up the question of the symptom and the end of the treatment (1975; 1976). If the symptom is "the most real thing" that subjects possess (1976one hand, p. 41), then how must analysis proceed to aim at the real of the symptom in order to ensure that the symptom does not proliferate in meaningful effects and even to eliminate the symptom? For analysis not to be an infinite process, for it to find its own internal limit, the analyst's interpretation, which bears upon the signifier, must also reach the real of the symptom, that is, the point where the symbolically nonmeaningful latches on to the real, where the first signifiers heard by the subject have left their imprint (Lacan, 1985, p. 14). According to Lacan, to reach its endpoint, an analysis must modify the relationship of the subject to the real, which is an irreducible whole in the symbolic from which the subject's fantasy and desire derive. [[Category:DictionaryReal]] BORROMEAN KNOTBy affirming the equivalence of the three categories R, S, and I, by representing them as three perfectly identical circles that could cannot be distinguished only by the names they were givenknown, and by knotting these three circles together in specific ways (such that if any one of them is cut, the other two are set free), Lacan introduced a new object in psychoanalysis, the Borromean knot. This knot is since it goes beyond both a material object that can be manipulated and a metaphor for the structure of the subject. The knot, made up of three rings, is characterized by how the rings (representing the real, the symbolic, and the imaginary) interlock and support each other. ==See Also==* [[Castration]] * [[Formula of Fantasy]]* [[Foreclosure]]* [[Fragmentation]]* [[Imaginary]]* [[Internal/external reality]]* [[Knot]] * [[Object a]]* [[Real, Symbolic, and Imaginary Father]]* [[Signifier]]* the [[Symbolic]]* [[Symptom]]* [[Sinthome]] ==References==<references/># Freud; it is, Sigmund. (1900a). The interpretation of dreams. SE, 4: 1like the Kantian thing-338; 5: 339-625.# ——. (1909b). Analysis of a phobia in a five-year-old boy. SEitself, 10: 1-149.# ——. (1911c [1910]). Psycho-analytic notes on an autobiographical account of a case of paranoia (dementia paranoides). SE, 12: 1-82.# ——. (1918b [1914])unknowable x. From On the history of an infantile neurosis. SE, 17: 1-122.# ——. (1920g). Beyond the pleasure principle. SE,18:1-64.# ——. (1925h). Negation. SEother hand, 19: 233-239.# Lacan, Jacques. (1966).Écrits. Paris: Seuil.# ——. (1974-1975). Le séminaire. Book 22: R.S.I. Ornicar?, 2-5.# ——. (1975). La troisième, intervention de J. Lacan le 31 octobre 1974. Lettres de l'École Freudienne, 16, 178-203.# ——. (1976). Conférences et entretiens dans les universités nord-américaines. Scilicet, 6-7, 5-63.# ——. (1978). The seminar of Jacques Lacan. Book 11: The four fundamental concepts of psycho-analysis (Alan Sheridan, Trans.). New York: W. W. Norton. (Original work published 1973)# ——. (1982). Le symbolique, l'imaginaire et le réel. Bulletin de l'Association Freudienne, 1, 4-13.# ——. (1985). Geneva lecture on quotes Hegel to the symptom (Russell Grigg, Trans.). Analysis, 1, 7-26. (Original work published 1975)# ——. (1988). The seminar of Jacques Lacan. Book 2: The ego in Freud's theory and in effect that the technique of psychoanalysis, 1954-1955 (Sylvana Tomaselli, Trans.). New York: W. W. Norton. (Original work published 1978)# ——. (1994). Le séminaire. Book 4: La relation d'objet (1956-1957). Paris: Seuil. [[Category:Real]]is rational and the rational is [[Category:Jacques LacanReal]][[Category:Terms]][[Category:Concepts]][[Category:Psychoanalysis]][[Category:Kid A In Alphabet Land]]{{Footer Kid A}}[[Category:Dictionary]], thus implying that it is amenable to calculation and logic.