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[[Aggressivity]] (French:''[[agressivité]]'') is one of the central issues that [[Lacan]] deals with in his papers in the period 1936 to the early 1950s.
==Aggression==
[[Aggression]] refers only to [[violence|violent]] [[act]]s whereas [[aggressivity]] is a fundamental relation which underlies not only such acts but many other phenomena also.<ref>{{SlS1}} p.177</ref>
[[Lacan]] argues that [[aggressivity]] is just as present in apparently loving acts as in violent ones; it "underlies the activity of the philanthropist, the idealist, the pedagogue, and even the reformer.<ref>{{E}} p.7</ref>
In the [[mirror stage]], the [[infant]] sees its [[reflection]] in the [[mirror]] as a [[wholeness]], in contrast with the uncoordination in the [[real]] [[body]]: this contrast is experienced as an aggressive tension between the [[specular image]] and the [[real]] [[body]], since the [[wholeness]] of the [[image]] seems to threaten the [[body]] with disintegration and [[fragmentation]] (see [[fragmented body]]).
The consequent [[identification]] with the [[specular image]] thus implies an [[ambivalent]] relation with the [[counterpart]], involving both [[eroticism]] and aggression.
This 'erotic aggression' continues as a fundamental [[ambivalence]] underlying all future forms of [[identification]], and is an essential characteristic of [[narcissism]].
