Changes

==Aggression==

[[Lacan]] is simply restating [[Freud]]'s concept of ambivalence (the interdependence of [[love]] and [[hate]]), which [[Lacan]] regards as one of the fundamental discoveries of [[psychoanalysis]].

[[Lacan]] situates [[aggressivity]] in the [[dual relation]] between the [[ego]] and the [[counterpart]].

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.

[[Narcissism]] can thus easily veer from extreme self-love to the opposite extreme of 'narcissistic suicidal aggression' (''agression suicidaire narcissique'').<ref>{{Ec}} p.187</ref>

By linking [[aggressivity]] to the [[imaginary]] [[order]] of [[eros]], [[Lacan]] seems to diverge significantly from [[Freud]], since [[Freud]] sees [[aggressivity]] as an outward manifestation of the [[death drive]] (which is, in [[Lacan]]ian terms, situated not in the imaginary but in the symbolic order).

[[Aggressivity]] is also related by [[Lacan]] to the [[Hegel]]ian concept of the [[fight to the death]], which is a [[stage]] in the [[dialectic]] of the [[master]] and the [[slave]].

[[Lacan]] argues that it is important to bring the [[analysand]]'s [[aggressivity]] into play early in the [[treatment]] by causing it to emerge as negative [[transference]].