==Jacques Lacan==
==Early Work==
Although the term "[[demand]]" only begins to figure prominently in [[Lacan]]'s work from 1958 on, related themes are already present in [[Seminar IV|the 1956-7 seminar]].
It is in this [[seminar]] that [[Lacan]] discusses the call (''l'appel''), the baby's cry begins to use the term "[[motherdemand]]" in 1958.<ref>{{S4}} p. 182</ref>
==Infant's Cry to its Mother==In the [[seminar]] of 1956-7, [[Lacan]] argues that this the '''cry ''' of the '''[[helplessness|human infant]]''' -- its '''call''' (''cril'appel'') to the '''[[mother]]''' -- is not merely an [[instinct|instinctual]] [[signal]] but is "is inserted in a synchronic world of cries organized in a symbolic system."<ref>{{S4}} p. 182, 188</ref>
In other words, the [[infant]]'s screams become organized in a [[linguistic]] [[structure]] long before the [[child]] is capable of articulating recognizable words.
