Fantasy, Formula of

In his early seminars, especially Object Relations (1956-57), Jacques Lacan primarily conceived of fantasy as deriving from psychic projection that screened a more painful image. He compared it to a freeze-frame, where an immobile image is often used to conceal the traumatic image that will come next. Thus he first conceived of fantasy as a defensive structure designed to protect against the perception of "lack" in the maternal other, thus of castration. A study of the different forms of the fantasmatic defense allow for a better...