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| − | The term '[[demand]]' ([[French]]: ''demande'') is elaborated by [[Jacques Lacan]] in opposition to [[need]] and [[desire]].
| + | {{Top}}demande{{Bottom}} |
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| − | [[Jacques Lacan]] introduces the concept of [[demand]] in opposition to [[need]] and desire]].
| + | ==Jacques Lacan== |
| | + | ==Early Work== |
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| − | [[Jacques Lacan]] posits a distinction between [[need]], [[demand]] and [[desire]]. | + | [[Lacan]] begins to use the term "[[demand]]" in 1958. |
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| − | ==Demand and Speech==
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| − | [[Demand]] is addressed to the Other. | + | In the [[seminar]] of 1956-7, [[Lacan]] argues that the '''cry''' of the '''[[helplessness|human infant]]''' -- its '''call''' (''l'appel'') to the '''[[mother]]''' -- is not merely an [[instinct|instinctual signal]] but is "inserted in a [[synchronic]] [[world]] of cries organized in a symbolic [[system]]."<ref>{{S4}} p. 182, 188</ref> |
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| − | ==Development==
| + | In other [[words]], the [[infant]]'s screams become organized in a [[linguistic]] [[structure]] long before the [[child]] is capable of articulating recognizable words. |
| − | In the 1956-7 [[seminar]], [[Object Relations]] [[Lacan]] addresses the [[call]] (''l'appel'' or ''cri'') of an [[infant]] to the [[mother]].<ref>[[Jacques Lacan|Lacan, Jacques]]. [[Object Relations]]. ''La relation d'objet et les structures freudiennes.'' p.182</ref> | |
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| − | The screams of the [[infant]] become organized in a [[linguistic]] [[structure]] .
| + | ==Need, Demand and Desire== |
| − | The cry "is inserted in a synchronic world of cries organised in a symbolic system."<ref>[[Jacques Lacan|Lacan, Jacques]]. [[Object Relations]]. ''La relation d'objet et les structures freudiennes.'' p.188</ref>
| + | It is the [[symbolic|symbolic nature]] of the infant's screams which forms the kernel of [[Lacan]]'s [[concept]] of [[demand]], which Lacan introduces in 1958 in the context of his [[distinction]] between [[need]], [[demand]] and [[desire]]. |
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| | + | ==Articulation of Need== |
| | + | Lacan argues that since the [[infant]] is incapable of performing the specific actions that would [[satisfy]] its [[biological]] [[need]]s, it must articulate those [[need]]s in vocal [[form]] ([[demand]]s) so that [[another]] (the [[mother]]) will perform the specific [[action]] instead. |
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| − | [[Demand]] is thus intimately linked to the [[human]] [[subject]]'s initial [[helplessness]]. | + | The primary example of such a [[biological]] [[need]] is hunger, which the [[child]] articulates in a scream ([[demand]]) so that the [[mother]] will feed it. |
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| | + | ==Demand for the Other's Love== |
| | + | However, because the object]] which [[satisfies]] the [[child]]'s [[need]] is provided by another, it takes on the added [[significance]] of [[being]] a proof of the [[Other]]'s [[love]]. |
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| − | The [[human]] [[infant]] cannot [[satisfy]] its own [[biological]] [[need]]s.
| + | Accordingly [[demand]] too acquires a [[double]] function: in addition to articualting a [[need]], it also becomes a [[demand]] for [[love]]. |
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| − | The [[infant]] must articulate those [[need]]s verbally.
| + | And just as the [[symbolic]] function of the [[object]] as a proof of [[love]] overshadows its [[real]] function as that which [[satisfies]] a [[need]], so too the [[symbolic]] [[dimension]] of [[demand]] (as a [[demand]] for [[love]]) eclipses its real function (as an articulation of [[need]]). |
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| − | For example: the [[infant]] articulates [[hunger]], a [[biology|biological]] [[need]], in a scream so that the [[mother]] will feed it.
| + | =Desire= |
| | + | It is this double function which gives [[birth]] to [[desire]], since while the [[need]]s which [[demand]] articulates may be [[satisfied]], the craving for [[love]] is unconditional and [[insatiable]], and hence persists as a leftover even after the [[need]]s have been satisfied; this leftover constitutes [[desire]]. |
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| | + | ==Helplessness== |
| | + | [[Demand]] is thus intimately linked to the [[human]] [[subject]]'s initial [[helplessness]]. |
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| − | The [[object]] which [[satisfaction|satisfies]] [[need]] (provided by another) also [[signifies]] the [[Other]]'s [[love]].
| + | By forcing the [[analysand]] to express himself entirely in [[speech]], the [[treatment|psychoanalytic situation]] puts him back in the [[position]] of the [[helpless]] [[infant]], thus encouraging [[regression]]. |
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| − | The [[demand]] that articulates a [[biology|biological]] [[need]] becomes a [[demand]] for [[love]].
| + | <blockquote>"Through the mediation of the demand, the [[whole]] [[past]] opens up [[right]] to early infancy. [[The Subject|The subject]] has never done anything other than demand, he could not have survived otherwise, an we just follow on from there."<ref>{{E}} p. 254</ref></blockquote> |
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| − | The [[symbolic function]] of the [[demand]] (as a [[demand]] for [[love]]) overshadows its [[real]] function as an articulation of [[need]].
| + | ==Analysand== |
| | + | However, while the [[speech]] of the [[analysand]] is itself already a [[demand]] (for a reply), this [[demand]] is underpinned by deeper [[demand]]s (to be [[cure]]d, to be revealed to himself, to become an [[analyst]]).<ref>{{E}} p. 254</ref> |
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| − | The function of [[demand]] as an articulation of [[need]] becomes overshadows by its [[symbolic function]] (as a [[demand]] for [[love]]). | + | ==Analyst== |
| | + | The question of how the [[analyst]] engages with these [[demands]] is crucial. |
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| − | The [[biology|biological]] [[need]] that [[demand]] articulates can be [[satisfaction|satisfied]].
| + | Certainly the [[analyst]] does not attempt to gratify the [[analysand]]'s [[demand]]s, but nor is it simply a question of [[frustration|frustrating]] [[them]]. |
| − | The [[demand]] for [[love]] is insatiable.
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| − | The [[demand]] for [[love]] persists as a [[leftover]] even after the [[biology|biological]] [[need]]s have been [[satisfaction|satisfied]].
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| − | This [[leftover]] constitutes [[desire]].
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| − | ==Analytic Treatment==
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| − | The [[speech]] or [[discourse]] of the [[analysand]] is itself already a [[demand]].<ref>E, 254</ref>
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| − | The [[analysand]] articulates him or herself entirely in [[speech]].
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| − | The [[analysand]] occupies the [[position]] of [[helplessness]], that of the [[helpless]] [[infant]].
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| − | The psychoanalytic situation thus encourags [[regression]].
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| − | Through the mediation of the [[demand]], the whole past opens up right down to early [[infancy]].
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| − | The [[analyst]] must engage with the [[demands]] of the [[analysand]].
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| − | He or she must not gratify the [[demand]]s of the [[analysand]], nor can he or she [[frustration|frustrate]] them.
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| − | ==Miscellaneous==
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| | + | ==Development== |
| | + | In 1961, [[Lacan]] rethinks the various [[stages]] of [[libidinal]] organisation as forms of [[demand]]. |
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| | + | The [[development|oral phase]] of [[development]] is constituted by a [[demand]] (made by the [[subject]]) to be fed (which is a [[demand]] made by the [[subject]]). |
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| − | [[Demand]] arises only from [[speech]].
| + | In the [[development|anal stage]], on the other hand, it is not a question of the [[subject]]'s [[demand]], but the [[demand]] of the [[Other]] (the parent who disciplines the child in potty-[[training]]).<ref>{{S8}} p. 238-46, 269</ref> |
| − | [[Demand]] is addressed to someone.
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| − | [[Demand]] is only implicit.
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| − | [[Demand]] is related to a need for love, but also to desire.
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| − | [[Demand]] does not need to be sustained by any real object.
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| − | [[Demand]] deprives the demand of its satisfaction. [[Demand]] arises when a [[lack]] in the [[Real]] becomes articulates in the [[symbolic]] medium of [[language]].
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| − | [[Demand]], like [[parapraxes]] or [[slips of the tongue]], express [[unconscious]] signifying formations.
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| − | [[Desire]] is leftover from the [[demand]].
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| − | The [[Real]] cannot be symbolized.
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| − | The leftover represents a [[loss|lost]] [[surplus]] of ''[[jouissance]]'' for the [[subject]].
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| − | "Don't give me what I ask for, that's not it."
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| − | The [[object]] of [[demand]] is a [[fantasy]] [[object]], what is [[lack]]ing in the [[unconscious]] [[Other]].
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| − | The function of the [[object]] is to make the [[demand]] of the [[subject]] and the [[demand]] of the [[Other]] coincide.
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| − | [[Demand]], although it is tied to both the [[symbolic]] and the [[real]], is primarily [[imaginary]], and thus most closely related to the [[body]].
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| − | | |
| − | The [[symbolic function]] of the [[object]] as a proof of [[love]] overshadows its real function as that which satisfies a [[need]].
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| − | The concept of demand is not Freudian. It was developed by Jacques Lacan, who linked it with need and desire (Lacan, 1966, 1991). Demand is identifiable by the five clinical traits that constitute it, by the status that it gives the object, by its function in relation to the Other, and finally by its topological register.
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| − | Regarding demand, we can say that 1) it arises only from speech; 2) it is addressed to someone; 3) it is nevertheless only implicit; 4) it is related to a need for love, but also to desire; 5) it does not need to be sustained by any real object.
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| − | The object of demand is what is lacking in the unconscious Other, and thus it is only a fantasmic object. Its function is to satisfy the drive and to make the demand of the subject and the demand of the Other coincide. Although it is tied to both the symbolic and the real, the register of demand is primarily imaginary, and thus most closely related to the body.
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| − | | |
| − | Before outlining more recent perspectives on demand, we must return to what Lacan said about it in relation to oral, anal, and genital regions of the body that serve as the sources of demand.
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| − | The oral demand calls for an inverse response, such that the other's answer to the imperative "feed me" is "let yourself be fed." This inversion becomes a source of discord or even of destructive urges. To whom is the demand addressed? To the Other, and not the mother. It is addressed to the Other that separates the demand from a desire. And that desire, in turn, deprives the demand of its satisfaction. Thus the demand becomes a non-demand. The dream of the "beautiful butcher's wife," as reported by Freud, is a perfect example of this. What is the object of her desire to define? It is a cannibalistic object. This desire is directed towards the nourishing body, an organic unconscious object through which the demand's relation to the Other can be sexualized. This libidinization, "which is nothing but surplus," deprives the need of its gratification. The function of desire, which sustains all demand, is in turn maintained in it and thus preserved. Desire can be recognized in the field of speech by the negation with which it originates: this, and not that!
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| − | The original oral relation between the mother and her child is constantly fed by a kind of hostility in which each one is convinced, at the imaginary level, of being "bawled out" by the other. Donald Winnicott (1974) emphasizes moreover that the object is so good, so exciting—that it bites. Consultations with mothers and children always show this.
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| − | At the anal stage, need reigns supreme; but while demand sets out to restrain need, desire wants to expel it. The one is entrusted with satisfying it, while the other is determined to control it. In the end, this control is legitimated only by turning need into a gift expected by an other, who is always primordially the mother. The oblation of this exonerating gift is metonymic. In order to evacuate the gift of symbolic desire, the one who gives it (child, student, or citizen, for example) could well adopt the slogan "everything for the other" in reference to the one who expects it (the mother, the teacher, or an authority figure)—this is true enough in the voting booth, at any rate. Such a gift is not produced by the one who gives it: someone else is the producer, someone who is able to wait for it only as long as the giver is suffering. It is not that the gift is necessarily painful in itself; the reaction of the one who receives it is the determining factor in that respect. So that her expectations will not be in vain, the mother eroticizes her relation with the child. She makes the child a sexual partner, involved in a fantasy in which he becomes the imaginary phallic object. In the end, the child will have been forced to do the only thing it was able to do. This was how the sadomasochistic economy was described by Freud, who took the symbolic equivalence of penis, feces, and child as his starting point.
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| − | How do we recognize an obsessional neurosis? By a declared conflict between demand and desire, satisfaction and discipline, need and legitimacy, gift and exoneration. The outcome of this conflict can only be a resignation to suffering. The characteristic "it could have been worse" attitude alludes to the masochistic jouissance that the obsessional derives from it, while "You had that coming" sums up the sadistic expectation of the other, who is without doubt the father—when it comes to need, he's always too much.
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| − | At the genital stage, demand seeks out a real partner. A repressed demand returns in the field of sexuality, and it will be satisfied only by a real engagement—one the subject wants to wait for, since he or she intends to bring it about. Thus the demand is based on the primacy of a sexual desire that is certainly sustained by a need, but that emphasizes a real lack in the other. Far from realizing desire, this lack constantly renews it. "The subject does not know what he desires most," either from the other or in terms of his own lack. From then on, the "something else" that originates from this lack of knowledge is related to a desire that is deceived. It is deceived if it believes itself to be lacking only the other, the missing half that is but a shadow from the past.
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| − | Taking the concept of transitivism as their point of departure, Gabriel Balbo and Jean Bergès (1996) have reconceptualized the analysis of demand. For them, demand cannot be conceived independently of the infant's identification with the discourse that the mother expresses in response the baby's cries, smiles, gurgling, and gestures. There is a double division at work here. The mother's own discourse, which she puts in the mouth of her child, divides the mother into a bodily, experienced real demand in contrast to what she expresses. The child is also divided from its own real demand by identifying with whatever part of that demand the mother expresses. This double division, with its consequent double repression, has an organizing influence on the ego, the status of the object, body image, the infant's jubilation at its own specular image, and the I. All processes of identification must be rethought in these terms, while at the same time demand and identification are also the origin of no less a dualism than that of life and death.
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| − | Such an analysis allows one to rethink the demand for an analysis, the preliminary interviews, the analytic contract, the direction and conduct of the treatment, and ultimately the transference. This reconceptualization reaches the very core of the discursive framework, and the analysis of dreams as well as the patient's speech is determined by it.
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| − | GABRIEL BALBO
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| | + | In both of these [[development|pregenital stage]]s the [[satisfaction]] of [[demand]] eclipses [[desire]]; only in the [[genital stage]] does [[desire]] comes to be fully constituted.<ref>{{S8}} p. 270</ref> |
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| | ==See Also== | | ==See Also== |
| | + | {{See}} |
| | + | * [[Analysand]] |
| | + | * [[Analyst]] |
| | + | || |
| | + | * [[Biology]] |
| | + | * [[Development]] |
| | + | || |
| | + | * [[Desire]] |
| | + | * [[Love]] |
| | + | || |
| | + | * [[Mother]] |
| | * [[Need]] | | * [[Need]] |
| − | * [[Desire]] | + | || |
| − | | + | * [[Other]] |
| − | Graph of Desire; Metonymy; Neurosis; Object a; Other, the; Subject of the unconscious; Symbolic, the (Lacan); Topology; Unary trait; Wish/yearning.
| + | * [[Speech]] |
| − | Bibliography
| + | || |
| − | | + | * [[Structure]] |
| | + | * [[Treatment]] |
| | + | {{Also}} |
| | | | |
| | ==References== | | ==References== |
| | + | <div style="font-size:11px" class="references-small"> |
| | <references/> | | <references/> |
| | + | </div> |
| | | | |
| − | * demand, 154-6, 209, 235, 269, 271, 273-4,278</ref>
| + | [[Category:Psychoanalysis]] |
| − | * '''The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis'''. Ed. J.-A. Miller. Trans. A. Sheridan. London: Hogarth Press, 1977.
| + | [[Category:Jacques Lacan]] |
| − | * Lacan, Jacques. (1966 [2002]).Écrits. Paris: Seuil. Écrits: A selection. (Bruce Fink, Trans.). New York: W. W. Norton.
| + | [[Category:Dictionary]] |
| − | * Lacan, Jacques. (1991). Le Séminaire-livre VIII, le transfert (1960-61). Paris: Seuil.
| + | [[Category:Treatment]] |
| − | * Lacan, Jacques. (1966 [2002]).Écrits. Paris: Seuil.Écrits: A selection. (Bruce Fink, Trans.). New York: W. W. Norton.
| + | [[Category:Practice]] |
| − | * ——.(1991). Le Séminaire-livre VIII, le transfert (1960-61). Paris: Seuil.
| + | [[Category:Concepts]] |
| | + | [[Category:Terms]] |
| | + | {{OK}} |
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| − | [[Category:Jacques Lacan]]
| + | __NOTOC__ |
| − | [[Category:Psychoanalysis]]
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| − | [[Category:Help]]
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| − | [[Category:New]]
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| − | {{Les termes}}
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Jacques Lacan
Early Work
Lacan begins to use the term "demand" in 1958.
In the seminar of 1956-7, Lacan argues that the cry of the human infant -- its call (l'appel) to the mother -- is not merely an instinctual signal but is "inserted in a synchronic world of cries organized in a symbolic system."[1]
In other words, the infant's screams become organized in a linguistic structure long before the child is capable of articulating recognizable words.
Need, Demand and Desire
It is the symbolic nature of the infant's screams which forms the kernel of Lacan's concept of demand, which Lacan introduces in 1958 in the context of his distinction between need, demand and desire.
Articulation of Need
Lacan argues that since the infant is incapable of performing the specific actions that would satisfy its biological needs, it must articulate those needs in vocal form (demands) so that another (the mother) will perform the specific action instead.
The primary example of such a biological need is hunger, which the child articulates in a scream (demand) so that the mother will feed it.
Demand for the Other's Love
However, because the object]] which satisfies the child's need is provided by another, it takes on the added significance of being a proof of the Other's love.
Accordingly demand too acquires a double function: in addition to articualting a need, it also becomes a demand for love.
And just as the symbolic function of the object as a proof of love overshadows its real function as that which satisfies a need, so too the symbolic dimension of demand (as a demand for love) eclipses its real function (as an articulation of need).
Desire
It is this double function which gives birth to desire, since while the needs which demand articulates may be satisfied, the craving for love is unconditional and insatiable, and hence persists as a leftover even after the needs have been satisfied; this leftover constitutes desire.
Helplessness
Demand is thus intimately linked to the human subject's initial helplessness.
By forcing the analysand to express himself entirely in speech, the psychoanalytic situation puts him back in the position of the helpless infant, thus encouraging regression.
"Through the mediation of the demand, the whole past opens up right to early infancy. The subject has never done anything other than demand, he could not have survived otherwise, an we just follow on from there."[2]
Analysand
However, while the speech of the analysand is itself already a demand (for a reply), this demand is underpinned by deeper demands (to be cured, to be revealed to himself, to become an analyst).[3]
Analyst
The question of how the analyst engages with these demands is crucial.
Certainly the analyst does not attempt to gratify the analysand's demands, but nor is it simply a question of frustrating them.
Development
In 1961, Lacan rethinks the various stages of libidinal organisation as forms of demand.
The oral phase of development is constituted by a demand (made by the subject) to be fed (which is a demand made by the subject).
In the anal stage, on the other hand, it is not a question of the subject's demand, but the demand of the Other (the parent who disciplines the child in potty-training).[4]
In both of these pregenital stages the satisfaction of demand eclipses desire; only in the genital stage does desire comes to be fully constituted.[5]
See Also
References
- ↑ Lacan, Jacques. Le Séminaire. Livre IV. La relation d'objet, 19566-57. Ed. Jacques-Alain Miller. Paris: Seuil, 1991. p. 182, 188
- ↑ Lacan, Jacques. Écrits: A Selection. Trans. Alan Sheridan. London: Tavistock Publications, 1977. p. 254
- ↑ Lacan, Jacques. Écrits: A Selection. Trans. Alan Sheridan. London: Tavistock Publications, 1977. p. 254
- ↑ Lacan, Jacques. Le Séminaire. Livre VIII. Le transfert, 1960-61. Ed. Jacques-Alain Miller. Paris: Seuil, 1991. p. 238-46, 269
- ↑ Lacan, Jacques. Le Séminaire. Livre VIII. Le transfert, 1960-61. Ed. Jacques-Alain Miller. Paris: Seuil, 1991. p. 270
