Nothing (psychoanalysis)
In psychoanalysis, nothing does not designate simple non-being or an empty void, but names a structural function through which desire, subjectivity, loss, and symbolization are organized. From Freud onward, psychoanalysis treats “nothing” as a meaningful formation—often a sign that something has been excluded, denied, or rendered unspeakable—rather than as mere emptiness.
| Nothing (psychoanalysis) | |
|---|---|
| French | rien; néant; manque (lack); vide (void) |
| German | Nichts; Verneinung (negation) |
| Key theorists | Sigmund Freud; Jacques Lacan |
| Linked concepts | Lack; Negation; Desire; Castration; Object a; Real; Anxiety; Death drive |
In Freudian theory, nothing appears most explicitly through the mechanisms of negation, repression, loss, and mourning, as well as in the speculative horizon opened by the death drive. Freud shows that what is psychically “nothing” is often what has been repudiated by consciousness yet continues to operate unconsciously.[1]
In Lacanian theory, nothing is radicalized and formalized as lack (manque), the void introduced by language, and the impossibility of fullness within the symbolic order. Lacan’s claim that desire depends on what is missing—and that the subject itself is constituted by a gap—makes nothing central rather than peripheral to psychoanalytic theory.[2]
Terminology and scope
Psychoanalysis does not treat “nothing” as a single technical concept. Instead, it addresses a constellation of related problems:
- Negation (Freud’s Verneinung): how the psyche says “no” while allowing repressed content to appear in speech.[1]
- Absence and loss: how missing objects structure libido, identification, and affect.[3]
- Lack (Lacan’s manque): a structural absence produced by the signifier; the subject’s “want-of-being” (manque-à-être).[2]
- Void or hole: the point at which symbolization fails, associated with the Real.[4]
Reference works emphasize that psychoanalytic “nothing” is not metaphysical nihilism but a way of describing how absence is produced, defended, and lived in psychic life.[5]
Freud
Negation and the production of “nothing” in speech
Freud’s most explicit treatment of nothing appears in his paper “Negation” (1925). There he argues that negation is not merely a logical operation but a psychic mechanism: by saying “no,” the subject allows a repressed idea to emerge in consciousness without accepting it.
A statement such as “This is not my mother” signals that the idea of the mother has in fact returned from repression. Negation thus creates a peculiar form of nothingness: the content is present as thought but stripped of affirmation.[1]
Freud concludes that negation permits the ego to take cognizance of repressed material while maintaining a defensive distance from it.
Loss, mourning, and melancholic emptiness
In “Mourning and Melancholia” (1917), Freud analyzes how loss is lived psychically. Mourning involves the gradual withdrawal of libidinal investment from a lost object; melancholia, by contrast, is characterized by a more radical disturbance in which the loss becomes internal and indeterminate.
The melancholic subject often experiences themselves as empty, worthless, or “nothing.” Freud links this to identification: the lost object is incorporated into the ego, and hostility toward the object is turned inward.[3]
Repression and the unconscious
Freud’s theory of repression shows that psychic “nothing” is rarely empty. What is excluded from consciousness continues to return in disguised forms—dreams, symptoms, slips of the tongue—demonstrating that absence itself is structured.[6]
Death drive and the lure of zero
In Beyond the Pleasure Principle (1920), Freud introduces the death drive, describing a tendency toward repetition, unbinding, and a return to an inorganic state.[7]
Lacan
Lacan radicalizes Freud by making lack and emptiness structural rather than contingent.
Lack and the barred subject
For Lacan, the subject is constituted through entry into language. This division is formalized as the barred subject (S̷).[2]
Desire and nothing
Lacan defines desire as arising from lack. Desire circulates endlessly because its cause has no positive representation.[8]
The lack in the Other
The Other is not complete; it lacks a final signifier. Lacan formalizes this as the barred Other (Ⱥ).[2]
Object a: the object that is “nothing”
Object a is the object-cause of desire, a remainder produced by symbolization rather than a positive thing.[4][9]
The Real and impossible nothing
The Real names what resists symbolization absolutely. It is encountered as trauma, anxiety, or intrusive jouissance.[4]
Clinical implications
Emptiness and depression
Experiences of emptiness are treated not as deficits but as positions in relation to loss and desire.[10]
Anxiety and the absence of nothing
Anxiety arises when there is no lack—when something appears where there should be nothing.[11]
Silence and “nothing to say”
Silence is treated as a formation of the unconscious rather than a failure.[12]
Freud and Lacan compared
Freud treats nothing as an effect of repression or loss. Lacan makes lack structural: nothing is what makes subjectivity and desire possible.
Distinction from philosophical nothingness
Psychoanalytic “nothing” concerns lived absence rather than metaphysical non-being.[5]
See also
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Freud, Sigmund. “Negation” (1925). In: James Strachey (ed. and trans.), The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, Vol. XIX. London: Hogarth Press.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 Lacan, Jacques. Écrits: The First Complete Edition in English. Trans. Bruce Fink. New York: W. W. Norton, 2006.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Freud, Sigmund. “Mourning and Melancholia” (1917 [1915]). In: Standard Edition, Vol. XIV. London: Hogarth Press.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 Lacan, Jacques. The Seminar of Jacques Lacan, Book XI: The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis. Ed. Jacques-Alain Miller. Trans. Alan Sheridan. New York: W. W. Norton, 1978.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 Laplanche, Jean, & Pontalis, Jean-Bertrand. The Language of Psycho-Analysis. London: Hogarth Press, 1973.
- ↑ Freud, Sigmund. The Interpretation of Dreams (1900). In: Standard Edition, Vols. IV–V. London: Hogarth Press.
- ↑ Freud, Sigmund. Beyond the Pleasure Principle (1920). In: Standard Edition, Vol. XVIII. London: Hogarth Press.
- ↑ Evans, Dylan. An Introductory Dictionary of Lacanian Psychoanalysis. London: Routledge, 1996.
- ↑ Fink, Bruce. The Lacanian Subject: Between Language and Jouissance. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995.
- ↑ Fink, Bruce. A Clinical Introduction to Lacanian Psychoanalysis: Theory and Technique. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997.
- ↑ Lacan, Jacques. The Seminar of Jacques Lacan, Book X: Anxiety. Ed. Jacques-Alain Miller. Trans. A. R. Price. Cambridge: Polity, 2014.
- ↑ Freud, Sigmund. “Recommendations to Physicians Practising Psycho-Analysis” (1912). In: Standard Edition, Vol. XII. London: Hogarth Press.