|
|
| (73 intermediate revisions by 4 users not shown) |
| Line 1: |
Line 1: |
| − | =def=
| |
| − | Drive (pulsion, Trieb)
| |
| − | Lacan reinstates a distinction, already clear in Freud, between the wholly psychical ''pulsion'' 9''Trieb'') and ''instinct'' (Instink''), with its 'biological' connotations.
| |
| − | As Lacan has poitned out, Freud's English translators blur this distinction by tranlsating both terms as 'instinct.'
| |
| | | | |
| − | =def= | + | {| align="[[right]]" style="margin-left:10px;line-height:2.0em;text-align:justify;background-color:#fcfcfc;border:1px solid #aaa" |
| | + | | [[French]]: ''[[pulsion]]'' |
| | + | |- |
| | + | | [[German]]: ''[[Trieb{{Bottom}} |
| | | | |
| | | | |
| | + | ==Drive and Instinct== |
| | + | ===Sigmund Freud=== |
| | + | [[Freud]]'s [[concept]] of the [[drive]] is central to his [[theory]] of [[human]] [[sexuality]]; it lies at the heart of his theory of [[sexuality]]. |
| | | | |
| | + | For [[Freud]], the distinctive feature of [[human]] [[sexuality]] -- as opposed to the [[sexual]] [[life]] of other animals -- is that it is not regulated by any [[instinct]] -- a concept which implies a relatively fixed and innate [[relationship]] to an [[object]] -- but by the [[drive]]s -- which differ from [[instinct]]s in that they are extremely variable, and develop in ways which are [[contingent]] on the life [[history]] of the [[subject]]. |
| | | | |
| | + | ===Jacques Lacan=== |
| | + | [[Lacan]] insists on maintaining the [[Freud]]ian [[distinction]] between [[drive]] and [[instinct]].<ref>{{E}} p.301</ref> |
| | | | |
| − | Freud's concept of the drive (Trieb) (pulsion) lies at the heart of his theory of sexuality.
| + | Whereas [[instinct]] denotes a [[mythical]] [[linguistic|pre-linguistic]] [[need]], the [[drive]] is completely removed from the realm of [[biology]]. |
| | | | |
| − | For Freud, the distinctive feature of human sexuality, as opposed to the sexual life of other animals, is that it is not regulated by any [[instinct]] (a concept which implies a relatively fixed and innate relationship to an object) but by the drives, which differ from instincts in that they are extremely variable, and develop in ways which are contingent on the life history of the subject.
| + | ====Aim of the Drive==== |
| | + | The [[drive]]s differ from [[biological]] [[need]]s in that they can never be [[satisfied]], and do not aim at an [[object]] but rather circle perpetually round it. |
| | | | |
| | + | [[Lacan]] argues that the [[purpose]] of the [[drive]] (''[[Triebziel]]'') is not to reach a ''[[goal]]'' (a final destination) but to follow its ''aim'' (the way itself), which is to circle round the [[object]].<ref>{{S11}} p.168</ref> |
| | | | |
| | + | Thus the [[real]] purpose of the [[drive]] is not some mythical goal of [[full]] [[satisfaction]], but to [[return]] to its circular path, and [[The Real|the real]] source of [[enjoyment]] is the [[repetition|repetitive movement]] of this closed circuit. |
| | | | |
| | + | ====Drive as Cultural and Symbolic Construct==== |
| | + | [[Lacan]] reminds his readers that [[Freud]] defined the [[drive]] as a montage composed of four discontinuous elements: the pressure, the end, the object and the source. |
| | | | |
| − | [[Lacan]] reaffirms the Freudian distinction between [[drive]] (''Trieb'') and [[instinct]] (''Instinkt'').<ref>E 301</ref>
| + | The [[drive]] cannot therefore be conceived of as "some ultimate given, something archaic, primordial."<ref>{{S11}} p.162</ref> |
| | | | |
| − | [[Instinct]] denotes a [[myth]]ical pre-linguistic [[need]].
| + | It is a thoroughly [[culture|cultural]] and [[symbolic]] [[construct]]. |
| − | [[Drive]] is completely removed from the realm of [[biology]].
| |
| − | [[Drive]], unlike [[biology|biological]] [[need]]s, can never be [[satisfaction|satisfied]].
| |
| − | [[Drive]]s do not aim at an [[object]] but rather circle perpetually round it. | |
| | | | |
| − | [[Lacan]] argues that the purpose of the [[drive]] is not to reach a goal (a final destination) but to follow its aim (the way itself), which is to circle round the [[object]].<ref>Sll, 168</ref> | + | [[Lacan]] thus empties the concept of the [[drive]] of the lingering references in [[Freud]]'s [[work]] to energetics and hydraulics. |
| − | Thus the real purpose of the [[drive]] is not some [[myth]]ical goal of full [[satisfaction]], but to return to its circular path, and the real source of [[enjoyment]] is the [[repetition|repetitive]] movement of this closed circuit.
| |
| | | | |
| | | | |
| − | Lacan reminds his readers that Freud defined the drive as a montage composed of four discontinuous elements: the pressure, the end, the object and the source. | + | ==The Circuit of the Drive== |
| | + | [[Lacan]] incorporates the four elements of the [[drive]] in his theory of the [[drive]]'s circuit. |
| | | | |
| − | The [[drive]] does not refer to "some ultimate given, something archaic, primordial."<ref>Sll, 162</ref>
| + | In this circut, the [[drive]] originates in an [[erogenous zone]]. |
| − | The [[drive]] is a thoroughly cultural and symbolic construct.
| |
| | | | |
| | + | This circuit is [[structured]] by the [[three]] [[grammatical]] voices. |
| | | | |
| − | Lacan incorporates the four elements of the drive in his theory of the drive's 'circuit'. In this circuit, the drive originates in an erogenous zone, circles round the object, and then returns to the erogenous zone. This circuit is structured by the three grammatical voices
| + | # The [[active]] [[voice]] (e.g. to see) |
| | | | |
| | + | # The reflexive voice (e.g. to see oneself) |
| | | | |
| − | 1 The active voice (e.g. to see)
| + | # The [[passive]] voice (e.g. to be seen) |
| − | 2 The reflexive voice (e.g. to see oneself)
| |
| − | 3 The passive voice (e.g. to be seen)
| |
| | | | |
| | + | ===Activity and Passivity=== |
| | + | The first of these two [[times]] (active and reflexive voices) are autoerotic; they [[lack]] a [[subject]]. |
| | | | |
| | + | Only in the [[third]] [[time]] (the passive voice), when the [[drive]] completes its circuit, does "a new subject" appear (which is to say that before this time, there was [[No Subject|no subject]]). |
| | | | |
| − | The first of these two times (active and reflexive voices) are autoerotic: they lack a subject Only in the third time (the passive voice), when the drive completes its circuit, does 'a new subject' appear (which is to say that before this time, there was no subject).<ref> see S11, 178</ref> Although the third time is the passive voice, the drive is always essentially active, which is why Lacan writes the third time not as 'to be seen' but as 'to make oneself be seen'. Even supposedly 'passive' phases of the drive such as masochism involve activity.<ref>Sll, 200</ref> The circuit of the drive is the only way for the subject to transgress the pleasure principle.
| + | Although the [[third time]] is the passive voice, the [[drive]] is always essentially active, which is why [[Lacan]] writes that the third time not as "to be seen" but as "to make oneself be seen." |
| | | | |
| | + | Even supposedly "passive" phases of the [[drive]] such as [[masochism]] involve [[activity]].<ref>{{S11}} p.200</ref> |
| | | | |
| − | Freud argued that sexuality is composed of a number of partial drives (Ger. Partieltrieb) such as the oral drive and the anal drive, each specified by a different source (a different erotogenic zone). At first these component drives function anarchically and independently (viz. the 'polymorphous perversity' of children), but in puberty they become organised and fused together under the primacy of the genital organs.<ref>Freud, 1905d</ref> Lacan emphasises the partial nature of all drives, but differs from Freud on two points.
| + | The circuit of the [[drive]] is the only way for the [[subject]] to [[transgress]] the [[pleasure principle]]. |
| | | | |
| | | | |
| | + | ==The Partial Nature of the Drives== |
| | + | [[Freud]] argued that [[sexuality]] is composed of a [[number]] of [[drive|partial drives]] ([[Ger]]. ''[[drive|Partieltrieb]]'') such as the [[drive|oral drive]] and the [[drive|anal drive]], each specified by a different source (a different [[erotogenic]] zone). |
| | | | |
| | + | At first these component [[drive]]s function anarchically and independently (viz. the "[[polymorphous perversity]]" of [[children]]), but in [[puberty]] they become organized and fused together under the priamcy of the [[genital]] organs.<ref>{{F}} p.1905d.</ref> |
| | | | |
| − | [[Lacan]] rejects the idea that the partial drives can ever attain any complete organisation or fusion, arguing that the primacy of the genital zone, if achieved, is always a highly precarious affair. He thus challenges the notion, put forward by some psychoanalysts after Freud, of a genital drive in which the partial drives are completely integrated in a harmonious fashion. | + | ===Differences between Freud and Lacan=== |
| | + | [[Lacan]] emphasizes the partial [[nature]] of all [[drive]]s, but differs from [[Freud]] on two points: |
| | | | |
| − | 2. Lacan argues that the drives are partial, not in the sense that they are parts of a whole (a 'genital drive'), but in the sense that they only represent sexuality partially; they do not represent the reproductive function of sexuality but only the dimension of enjoyment.<ref>Sll, 204</ref>
| + | # [[Lacan]] rejects the [[idea]] that the partial drives can ever attain any [[complete]] organization or fusion, aruging that the priamcy of the genital zone, if achieved, is always a highly precarious affair. |
| | | | |
| − | Lacan identifies four partial drives: the oral drive, the anal drive, the scopic drive, and the invocatory drive. Each of these drives is specified by a different partial object and a different erogenous zone.
| + | : He thus challenges the [[notion]], put forward by some [[psychoanalysts]] after [[Freud]], of a [[genital drive]] in which the partial drives are completely integrated in a [[harmonious]] relation. |
| | | | |
| − | The first two drives relate to demand, whereas the second pair relate to desire.
| + | # [[Lacan]] argues that the [[drive]]s are partial, not in the [[sense]] that thy are parts of a [[whole]] (a 'genital drive'), but in the sense that they only [[represent]] sexuality partially; they do not represent the [[reproductive]] function of sexuality but only the [[dimension]] of enjoyment.<ref>{{S11}} p.204</ref> |
| − | In 1957, in the context of the graph of desire, Lacan proposes the formula (SO D) as the [[matheme]] for the drive. This formula is to be read: the barred subject in relation to demand, the fading of the subject before the insistence of a demand that persists without any conscious intention to sustain it.
| |
| | | | |
| − | Throughout the various reformulations of drive-theory in Freud's work, one constant feature is a basic dualism. At first this dualism was conceived in terms of an opposition between the sexual drives (Sexualtriebe) on the one hand, and the ego-drives (Ichtriebe) or drives of self-preservation (Selbsterhaltungs-triebe) on the other. This opposition was problematised by Freud's growing realisation, in the period 1914-20, that the ego-drives are themselves sexual.
| |
| | | | |
| − | He was thus led to reconceptualise the dualism of the drives in terms of an opposition between the life drives (Lebenstriebe) and the death drives (Todestriebe).
| + | ===The Four Partial Drives=== |
| | + | [[Lacan]] [[identifies]] four partial drives: the [[drive|oral drive]], the [[drive|anal drive]], the [[drive|scopic drive]], and the [[drive|invocatory drive]]. |
| | | | |
| − | Lacan argues that it is important to retain Freud's dualism, and rejects the monism of Jung, who argued that all psychic forces could be reduced to one single concept of psychic energy.<ref>(Sl, l18-20).</ref> However, Lacan prefers to reconceptualise this dualism in terms of an opposition between the symbolic and the imaginary, and not in terms of an opposition between different kinds of drives. Thus, for Lacan, all drives are sexual drives, and every drive is a [[death drive]]. Since every drive is excessive, repetitive, and ultimately destructive.<ref> (Ec,848)</ref>
| + | Each of these [[drive]]s is specified by a different [[partial object]] and a different [[erogenous zone]]. |
| | | | |
| | + | The first two [[drive]]s relate to [[demand]], whereas the second pair relate to [[desire]]. |
| | | | |
| − | The drives are closely related to [[desire]]; both originate in the field of the subject, as opposed to the genital drive, which (if it exists) finds its form on the side of the Other.<ref>(Sll, 189)</ref> However, the drive is not merely another name for desire: they are the partial aspects in which desire is realised. Desire is one and undivided, whereas the drives are partial manifestations of desire.
| + | {| style="width:75%; height:200px" border="1" cellpadding="5" cellspacing="0" align="center" |
| | + | |+ '''[[:Image:Lacan-tablepartialdrives.jpg|Table of partial drives]]'''<BR> |
| | + | ! align="center" | !! align="center" | [[Partial drive|PARTIAL DRIVE]] !! align="center" | EROGENOUS ZONE !! align="center" | [[Partial Object|PARTIAL OBJECT]] !! align="center" | VERB |
| | + | |- |
| | + | | align="center" | D |
| | + | | align="center" | [[Oral]] [[drive]] || align="center" | [[Erogenous zone|Lips]] || align="center" | [[Partial object|Breast]] || align="center" | To suck |
| | + | |- |
| | + | | align="center" | D |
| | + | | align="center" | [[Anal]] [[drive]] || align="center" | [[Erogenous zone|Anus]] || align="center" | [[Partial object|Faeces]] || align="center" | To shit |
| | + | |- |
| | + | | align="center" | d |
| | + | | align="center" | [[Scopic]] [[drive]] || align="center" | [[Erogenous zone|Eyes]] || align="center" | [[Partial object|Gaze]] || align="center" | To see |
| | + | |- |
| | + | | align="center" | d |
| | + | | align="center" | [[Invocatory]] [[drive]] || align="center" | [[Erogenous zone|Ears]] || align="center" | [[Partial object|Voice]] || align="center" | To hear |
| | + | |} |
| | | | |
| | | | |
| | + | ==The Lacanian Matheme for the Drive== |
| | + | In 1957, in the context of the [[graph of desire]], [[Lacan]] proposes the [[formula]] ('''S <> D''') as the [[matheme]] for the [[drive]]. |
| | | | |
| − | == def ==
| + | This formula is to be read: the [[bar]]ed [[subject]] in relation to [[demand]], the [[fading]] of the [[subject]] before the [[insistence]] of a [[demand]] that persists without any [[conscious]] [[intention]] to sustain it. |
| | | | |
| − | Instinctual (pre-lingual) bodily impulses or instincts, which Freud ultimately decided could be reduced to two primary drives: 1) the life drives (both the pleasure principle and the reality principle); and 2) the death drive, which Freud saw as even more primal than the life drives.
| |
| | | | |
| − | ==def= | + | ==The Dualism of the Drives== |
| | + | ===Sigmund Freud: Life and Death=== |
| | + | Throughout the various reformulations of drive-theory in [[Freud]]'s work, one constant feature is a basic [[dualism]]. |
| | | | |
| − | <span style="font-size: 14pt;">Freud, Lacan and the psychoanalytic drive</span><span style="text-decoration: none;"> </span></u></b></p>
| + | At first this dualism was conceived in [[terms]] of an opposition between the [[drive|sexual drive]]s (''[[drive|Sexualtriebe]]'') on the one hand, and the [[drive|ego-drive]]s (''[[drive|Ichtriebe]]'') or [[drive|drives of self-preservation]] (''[[drive|Selbsterhaltungstriebe]]'') on the other. |
| | | | |
| | + | This opposition was problematized by [[Freud]]'s growing realization, in the period 1914-20, that the [[drive|ego-drive]]s are themselves sexual. |
| | | | |
| | + | He was thus led to reconceptualize the dualism of the [[drive]]s in terms of an opposition between the [[drive|life drive]]s (''[[drive|Lebenstriebe]]'') and the [[death drive]]s (''[[death drive|Todestriebe]]''). |
| | | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> | + | ===Jacques Lacan: Symbolic and Imaginary=== |
| | + | [[Lacan]] argues that it is important to retain [[Freud]]'s dualism, and rejects the monism of [[Jung]], who argued that all [[psychic]] forces could be reduced to one single concept of psychic [[energy]].<ref>{{S1}} p.118-20</ref> |
| | | | |
| | + | However, [[Lacan]] prefers to reconceptualize this dualism in terms of an opposition between the [[symbolic]] and the [[imaginary]], and not in terms of an opposition between different kinds of [[drive]]s. |
| | | | |
| | + | Thus, for [[Lacan]], all [[drive]]s are [[drive|sexual drive]]s, and every [[drive]] is a [[death drive]] since every [[drive]] is excessive, [[repetition|repetitive]], and ultimately destructive.<ref>{{Ec}} p.848</ref> |
| | | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal" align="center"><b>By Matthew James, M.A.</b></p>
| + | ==Drive and Desire== |
| | + | The [[drive]]s are closely related to [[desire]]; both originate in the field of the [[subject]], as opposed to the [[drive|genital drive]], which (if it [[exists]]) finds its [[form]] on the side of the [[Other]].<ref>{{S11}} p.189</ref> |
| | | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;" align="center"><b> </b></p>
| + | However, the [[drive]] is not merely [[another]] [[name]] for [[desire]]: they are the partial aspects in which [[desire]] is realized. |
| | | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;" align="center"> </p>
| + | [[Desire]] is one and undivided, whereas the [[drive]]s are partial manifestations of [[desire]]. |
| | | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0.5in;" align="center">
| + | ==See Also== |
| | + | {{See}} |
| | + | * [[Biology]] |
| | + | * [[Death drive]] |
| | + | * [[Demand]] |
| | + | || |
| | + | * [[Desire]] |
| | + | * [[Instinct]] |
| | + | * [[Need]] |
| | + | || |
| | + | * [[Pleasure principle]] |
| | + | * [[Sexuality]] |
| | + | * [[Subject]] |
| | + | {{Also}} |
| | | | |
| − | <font size="2">After an interval the man spoke to me. He said that my friend was
| + | ==References== |
| − | | + | <div style="font-size:11px" class="references-small"> |
| − | a very rough boy and asked did he get whipped often at school. I was going to reply indignantly that we were not
| |
| − | | |
| − | National School boys to be <i>whipped</i> as he called it, but I remained
| |
| − | | |
| − | silent. He began to speak on the subject of chastising boys. <i>His mind, as if
| |
| − | | |
| − | magnetized again by his speech, seemed to circle slowly round and round its new
| |
| − | | |
| − | centre</i>. He said that when boys were that kind they ought to be whipped and
| |
| − | | |
| − | well whipped. When a boy was rough and unruly there was nothing would do him any
| |
| − | | |
| − | good but a good sound whipping. A slap on the hand or a box on the ear was no
| |
| − | | |
| − | good: what he wanted was to get a nice warm whipping. I was surprised at this
| |
| − | | |
| − | sentiment and involuntarily glanced at his face. As I did so I met the gaze of a
| |
| − | | |
| − | pair of bottle-green eyes peering at me from under a twitching forehead. I
| |
| − | | |
| − | turned my eyes away again.</font></p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: right; margin-left: 0.5in;" align="center">
| |
| − | | |
| − | </p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: right; margin-left: 0.5in;" align="center">
| |
| − | | |
| − | <font size="2">James Joyce, ‘An Encounter’</font></p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;" align="center"> </p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;" align="center"><b><u>The Freudian
| |
| − | | |
| − | drive</u></b></p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal"><b> </b></p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal"><b>The drive is a mythological concept</b></p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal"><b> </b></p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;"><font size="2">The theory of the
| |
| − | | |
| − | drives is so to say our mythology. Drives are mythical entities, magnificent in
| |
| − | | |
| − | their indefiniteness. (Freud, New Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis)</font></p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal"><font size="2"> </font></p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal">The concept of the drive is a hypothesis, a strategic
| |
| − | | |
| − | assumption, a myth. Along with the related concepts of the unconscious and
| |
| − | | |
| − | transference, it represents Freud’s (perhaps unwitting) attempt to move from the
| |
| − | | |
| − | objective natural sciences of his time - physics, biology, and chemistry -
| |
| − | | |
| − | towards a theory based on subjective discourse and speech, dreams, fantasies and
| |
| − | | |
| − | symptoms.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;"><font size="2">The forces which we
| |
| − | | |
| − | <i>assume</i> to exist behind the tensions caused by the needs of the id are
| |
| − | | |
| − | called drives. (Freud, An Outline of Psychoanalysis)</font></p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt;"> </span></p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal">Freud’s technique was to forge theory from practice,
| |
| − | | |
| − | knowledge from observation and interaction. Real phenomena such as bodily
| |
| − | | |
| − | symptoms, repetitive phrases, and apparently bungled actions form the basis of
| |
| − | | |
| − | theoretical constructions. <i>Ça parle</i>, as Lacan says - it, the unconscious,
| |
| − | | |
| − | speaks. Thus the idea that psychoanalysis itself was born from hysteria, the
| |
| − | | |
| − | hysteric’s discourse of Anna O. as addressed to Freud <i>qua </i>analyst.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;"><font size="2">We have often heard
| |
| − | | |
| − | it maintained that sciences should be built up on clear and sharply defined
| |
| − | | |
| − | basic concepts. In actual fact no science, not even the most exact, begins with
| |
| − | | |
| − | such definitions. The true beginning of scientific activity consists rather in
| |
| − | | |
| − | describing phenomena and then in proceeding to group, classify, and correlate
| |
| − | | |
| − | them. Even at the stage of description it is not possible to avoid applying
| |
| − | | |
| − | certain abstract ideas to the material in hand, ideas derived from somewhere or
| |
| − | | |
| − | other but certainly not from the new observations alone. (Freud, Instincts and
| |
| − | | |
| − | their Vicissitudes)</font></p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal">Freud’s analytic theory represents the application of
| |
| − | | |
| − | subjectivity to science, which is precisely what science defines itself in
| |
| − | | |
| − | opposition to. In this way, Lacan will say that psychoanalysis represents
| |
| − | | |
| − | Freud’s <i>desire</i>.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal"><b>The drive is not an instinct</b></p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal">We might start by making, with Freud, a provisional
| |
| − | | |
| − | distinction between animal instincts, ‘instinkts’, based on hereditary patterns
| |
| − | | |
| − | and corresponding to organic needs, with ‘triebe’, specifically human, and
| |
| − | | |
| − | dynamically variable, drives. </p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal">Laplanche and Pontalis provide a useful gloss on the two
| |
| − | | |
| − | German terms. Instinkt is “traditionally a hereditary pattern peculiar to an
| |
| − | | |
| − | animal species, varying little from one member of this species to another and
| |
| − | | |
| − | unfolding in accordance with a temporal scheme which is generally resistant to
| |
| − | | |
| − | change and apparently geared to a purpose.” Trieb “retains overtones suggestive
| |
| − | | |
| − | of pressure (<i>treiben</i>, to push); the use of ‘Trieb’ indicates not so much
| |
| − | | |
| − | a precise goal as a general orientation, and draws attention to the irresistible
| |
| − | | |
| − | nature of the pressure rather than to the stability of its aim and object.”</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal">The so-called ‘hunger instinct’, the need to eat, would
| |
| − | | |
| − | thus not be the same as what Freud calls the oral drive. A better example is the
| |
| − | | |
| − | disjunction between the ‘reproductive instinct’, with its fixed aim and object,
| |
| − | | |
| − | and the panopoly of human sexual drives. The point here is not to claim that
| |
| − | | |
| − | humans are immune from the influence of instinct and biological need, but to
| |
| − | | |
| − | propose that these ‘instincts’ are mutable, colored by individual experience.
| |
| − | | |
| − | </p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal">Freud’s authorized English translator, James Strachey,
| |
| − | | |
| − | renders both ‘instinkt’ and ‘trieb’ by the English ‘instinct’, a strategy which
| |
| − | | |
| − | later translators have for the most part also adopted. Thus the distinction
| |
| − | | |
| − | between the two German terms can be somewhat hard to grasp, a distinction Lacan
| |
| − | | |
| − | will take as the starting point for his work on the drive. </p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal"><b>The structure of the Freudian drive</b></p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal">In his 1915 paper ‘Instincts and their Vicissitudes’, Freud
| |
| − | | |
| − | outlines the four components of his drive: pressure, source, aim, and object.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal">Laplanche and Pontalis describe the relations between these
| |
| − | | |
| − | terms by stating that the drive is “a dynamic process consisting in a <i>
| |
| − | | |
| − | pressure</i> (charge of energy, motricity factor) which directs the organism
| |
| − | | |
| − | towards an aim. According to Freud, a drive has its <i>source</i> in a bodily
| |
| − | | |
| − | stimulus; its <i>aim</i> is to eliminate the state of tension obtaining at the
| |
| − | | |
| − | instinctual source; and it is in the <i>object</i>, or thanks to it, that the
| |
| − | | |
| − | drive may achieve its aim.”</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal">In defining the drive, Freud goes on to differentiate
| |
| − | | |
| − | between a singular external stimulus (i.e. the sight of a predator) which can be
| |
| − | | |
| − | assuaged by the body through muscular activity (i.e. fight or flight), and
| |
| − | | |
| − | internal stimuli of a more constant nature which must be regulated by the mind -
| |
| − | | |
| − | “an internal <i>alteration</i> of the source of stimulation” (Instincts and
| |
| − | | |
| − | their Vicissitudes) - rather than
| |
| − | | |
| − | eradicated. These responses to excitation are in accordance with Freud’s
| |
| − | | |
| − | economic principle of equilibrium, the pleasure principle, which is based on the
| |
| − | | |
| − | discharge of tension. </p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal">Freud is somewhat vague on the origins of such constant,
| |
| − | | |
| − | internal excitation - he has not yet indexed its status as fundamentally <i>
| |
| − | | |
| − | beyond</i> the pleasure principle - but admits that “there is naturally nothing
| |
| − | | |
| − | to prevent our supposing that the drives [i.e. the internal stimuli] themselves
| |
| − | | |
| − | are, at least in part, precipitates of the effects of external stimulation”
| |
| − | | |
| − | (Instincts and their Vicissitudes). The
| |
| − | | |
| − | idea, as Freud expresses it earlier, in his ‘Project for a Scientific
| |
| − | | |
| − | Psychology’ of 1895, is that an intelligent organism faced with an array of
| |
| − | | |
| − | confusing sensations and experiences must effectively filter and regulate this
| |
| − | | |
| − | sensory data in order to survive. </p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal">The psychic apparatus thus intervenes as a method of
| |
| − | | |
| − | defense, to ‘alter’ or redirect the internal stimulus, the instinctual drive
| |
| − | | |
| − | which cannot be mastered by the body alone, i.e. by fight or flight. The drive
| |
| − | | |
| − | “appears to us as a concept on the frontier between the mental and somatic, as
| |
| − | | |
| − | the psychical representative of the stimuli originating from within the organism
| |
| − | | |
| − | and reaching the mind, as a measure of the demand made upon the mind for work in
| |
| − | | |
| − | consequence of its connection with the body” (Instincts and their
| |
| − | | |
| − | Vicissitudes). The ‘psychical representative’ of the drive, the representation
| |
| − | | |
| − | of that energetic pressure which the body redirects towards the mind, is
| |
| − | | |
| − | localized by Freud in his concept of the unconscious. The somatic pressure
| |
| − | | |
| − | itself, split off from its bodily origins, becomes manifest to consciousness as
| |
| − | | |
| − | an ‘unmoored’ quota of affective energy. Thus the essential <i>Spaltung</i>,
| |
| − | | |
| − | or splitting, which defines Freud’s model of the psyche.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal">The psychical transformations and displacements of the
| |
| − | | |
| − | pure, somatic instinct are the only means Freud has to conceptualize his ideas
| |
| − | | |
| − | on the drive: </p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;"><font size="2">I am indeed of
| |
| − | | |
| − | the opinion that the antithesis of conscious and unconscious does not hold for
| |
| − | | |
| − | drives. A drive can never be an object of consciousness - only the idea that
| |
| − | | |
| − | represents the drive. Even in the unconscious, moreover, it can only be
| |
| − | | |
| − | represented by the idea. If the drive did not attach itself to an idea or
| |
| − | | |
| − | manifest itself as an affective state, we could know nothing about it. (Freud,
| |
| − | | |
| − | The Unconscious)</font></p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal">The psychical aspects of the drive, its representations,
| |
| − | | |
| − | become a necessary foundation for Freud’s theoretical framework. This sets the
| |
| − | | |
| − | stage for the basis of Lacan’s reading of the Freudian drive as defined by its
| |
| − | | |
| − | place in a language-system, or signifying structure to use his terms.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><b> </b></p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;" align="center"><b><u>Drive theory
| |
| − | | |
| − | in the Freudian field</u></b></p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal"><b> </b></p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal"><b>Lacan and the truth of Freud</b></p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal">It is worth briefly examining the conceptual development of
| |
| − | | |
| − | the drive in psychoanalytic theory after Freud because, especially in his early
| |
| − | | |
| − | work, this is where Lacan himself begins. His self-proclaimed ‘return to Freud’,
| |
| − | | |
| − | by which he means a return to the truth of the Freudian analytic experience, is
| |
| − | | |
| − | characterized in part by a series of commentaries on the work of other analysts
| |
| − | | |
| − | and analytic movements he perceives as deviations from this truth. </p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;"><font size="2">I am not, for all
| |
| − | | |
| − | that, denouncing the anti-Freudian aspects of contemporary psychoanalysis.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Indeed, we should be grateful to the partisans of the latter for throwing down
| |
| − | | |
| − | their mask in this regard, priding themselves, as they do, on going beyond what
| |
| − | | |
| − | they, in fact, know nothing about, having retained just enough of Freud’s
| |
| − | | |
| − | doctrine to sense how significantly what they are led to enunciate about their
| |
| − | | |
| − | experience diverges from it. (Lacan, The direction of the treatment)</font></p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal">Lacan alludes here to a certain ‘not wanting to know’, an
| |
| − | | |
| − | effect of (in this case perhaps social and moral) repression which separates the
| |
| − | | |
| − | subject of the enunciation, the speaking subject which experiences analytic
| |
| − | | |
| − | truth, from the subject of the statement, the contemporary analytic ego through which
| |
| − | | |
| − | it is repressed. </p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal"><b>The Freudian field</b></p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal">The concept of the drive, and in particular Freud’s
| |
| − | | |
| − | insistence on the sexual nature of the drive, was to prove a divisive issue for
| |
| − | | |
| − | psychoanalysis. Psychology, the science from which Freud sought to differentiate
| |
| − | | |
| − | his own discipline while at the same craving its acknowledgement, would attempt
| |
| − | | |
| − | to ignore Freud’s discoveries, and then discredit them - sexuality and the body
| |
| − | | |
| − | were seen as incidental if not irrelevant to a science of the mind. Alfred
| |
| − | | |
| − | Adler, one of the first analysts to break from Freud, rejected the sexual basis
| |
| − | | |
| − | of the drive in favor of a more aggressive human principle, a drive towards
| |
| − | | |
| − | knowledge and self-perfection. Jung would propose a more symbolic, archetypal
| |
| − | | |
| − | notion of the unconscious than his mentor, and rethink the human drive, and
| |
| − | | |
| − | analysis itself, as a form of spiritual quest. </p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal">Moving forward in time, Melanie Klein will accept the
| |
| − | | |
| − | centrality of sexuality and the drives, yet according to Lacan, she imposes her
| |
| − | | |
| − | own, partially erroneous theoretical structure on top of Freud’s - one
| |
| − | | |
| − | over-emphasizing imaginary relations and the role of the mother. In America,
| |
| − | | |
| − | with the rise of object-relations theory, there is the movement from a so-called
| |
| − | | |
| − | 1 person to 2 person psychology, a move away - in Lacan’s view - from the
| |
| − | | |
| − | Freudian subject of the unconscious towards a model based more on communication,
| |
| − | | |
| − | construction, and intersubjectivity. More recently, the idea of a sexual drive
| |
| − | | |
| − | innately connected to the body has been questioned by gender theorists
| |
| − | | |
| − | emphasizing the performative, and therefore potentially renegotiable, nature of
| |
| − | | |
| − | sexuality. </p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal">By contrast, Lacan will claim for himself a more
| |
| − | | |
| − | conservative role, repeatedly stating his fidelity to the texts of Freud and
| |
| − | | |
| − | their clinical implications. Whilst this claim is a matter of some debate, it is
| |
| − | | |
| − | nevertheless useful to think of the Lacanian drive as a reaction to, and a
| |
| − | | |
| − | rebuttal of, certain developments in post-Freudian psychoanalysis. </p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;" align="center"><b><u>The Lacanian
| |
| − | | |
| − | drive</u></b></p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;" align="center"><b> </b></p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal">The drive has a central place in Lacan’s work - along with
| |
| − | | |
| − | the unconscious, repetition, and transference, it is one of the Four Fundamental
| |
| − | | |
| − | Concepts of Psychoanalysis which he proposes in his 11<sup>th</sup> annual
| |
| − | | |
| − | Seminar of 1964. In a conference paper given that same year, Lacan introduces
| |
| − | | |
| − | the concept of the drive thus: </p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;"><font size="2">The drive, as it
| |
| − | | |
| − | is constructed by Freud on the basis of the experience of the unconscious,
| |
| − | | |
| − | prohibits psychologizing thought from resorting to “instinct” by which it masks
| |
| − | | |
| − | its ignorance through the supposition of morals in nature. It can never be often
| |
| − | | |
| − | enough repeated, given the obstinacy of psychologists who, on the whole and per
| |
| − | | |
| − | se, are in the service of technocratic exploitation, that the drive - the
| |
| − | | |
| − | Freudian drive - has nothing to do with instinct (none of Freud’s expressions
| |
| − | | |
| − | allows for confusion). (Lacan, On Freud’s <i>Trieb</i> and the Psychoanalysts
| |
| − | | |
| − | Desire)</font></p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal">In order to define what the drive <i>is</i> for Lacan, as
| |
| − | | |
| − | opposed to what it is not, a little theoretical groundwork is involved.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal"><b>Need, Demand, Desire</b></p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal"><b> </b></p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal">Lacan substitutes Freud’s myth of the intelligent organism
| |
| − | | |
| − | besieged by potentially harmful stimuli with his own image of a helpless child
| |
| − | | |
| − | before its mother. The child, like other animals, is subject to what Lacan terms
| |
| − | | |
| − | need, a series of biological instincts (for example hunger) which can be
| |
| − | | |
| − | satisfied by certain objects (for example milk). Lacan theorizes (non-human)
| |
| − | | |
| − | animal communication in terms of a code based on signs, which can be transmitted
| |
| − | | |
| − | and received with no risk of misinterpretation - i.e. a certain type of cry (as
| |
| − | | |
| − | defined by pitch, volume, time of day or some other consistent variable) would
| |
| − | | |
| − | convey a specific need for food, rather than say warmth or water, to the parent.
| |
| − | | |
| − | By contrast, the human animal can only express his need through speech, and a
| |
| − | | |
| − | symbolic language-system based on signifiers, which do not correspond to any
| |
| − | | |
| − | ‘real’ object of need, but only achieve a semblance of meaning in their relation
| |
| − | | |
| − | to, and difference from, other signifiers. Ferdinand de Saussure, the Swiss
| |
| − | | |
| − | linguist whose work Lacan draws on here, gives the example of the signifier
| |
| − | | |
| − | ‘cat’, whose ‘catness’, as it were, is constructed from the cumulative premises
| |
| − | | |
| − | that it is not a dog, or a horse, or a windmill, or any other signifier. Thus
| |
| − | | |
| − | Lacan will propose that ‘the signifier represents the subject for another
| |
| − | | |
| − | signifier’ in a potentially infinite signifying chain. </p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal">The human child, then, can express himself only through a
| |
| − | | |
| − | demand, which is by nature inarticulate - he is without the linguistic means to
| |
| − | | |
| − | articulate what he wants. For Lacan, this is equivalent to saying he does not
| |
| − | | |
| − | know what he wants. The child is alienated from his body, he cannot speak it.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Thus his cry, his demand to satiate whatever it is that is troubling him, to be
| |
| − | | |
| − | given whatever it is that he wants, is destined always to be misinterpreted - or
| |
| − | | |
| − | rather to be overwritten, inferred, decided for him, in a process not unlike
| |
| − | | |
| − | that of analytic suggestion, by his mother, or whoever first takes this place of
| |
| − | | |
| − | guardian, listener, analyst, which Lacan terms the Other. </p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal"><i>What do you want of me?</i> Are you hungry, thirsty,
| |
| − | | |
| − | tired, wet? The Other, unable to comprehend, or thus to satisfy, the child’s
| |
| − | | |
| − | abstract demand, provides a series of substitute objects for him. Oh, you must
| |
| − | | |
| − | need ‘x' - the breast, the bottle, the toy. The child in his turn determines
| |
| − | | |
| − | these responses as demands <i>from</i> the Other, answers to his primordial
| |
| − | | |
| − | questions, pointers to his place in the world. <i>What do you want of me?</i>
| |
| − | | |
| − | Oh, you must want me to suck, crawl, speak, shit. The signifier is thus reduced
| |
| − | | |
| − | to a sign in these primitive encounters with the demand of the Other. Lacan
| |
| − | | |
| − | theorizes demand as essentially a demand for love, an impossible, narcissistic
| |
| − | | |
| − | demand for access to a ‘real’ object in the Other, unmediated by language, which
| |
| − | | |
| − | would act as a sign of love, a gift bringing complete satisfaction.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal"><b> </b></p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;"><font size="2">
| |
| − | | |
| − | Demand in itself bears on something other than
| |
| − | | |
| − | the satisfactions it calls for. It is a demand of a presence or of an absence -
| |
| − | | |
| − | which is what is manifested in the primordial relation to the mother. Demand
| |
| − | | |
| − | constitutes the Other as already possessing the ‘privilege’ of satisfying needs,
| |
| − | | |
| − | that is to say, the power of depriving them of that alone by which they are
| |
| − | | |
| − | satisfied. This privilege of the Other thus outlines the radical form of the
| |
| − | | |
| − | gift of that which the Other does not have, namely, its love. In this way,
| |
| − | | |
| − | demand annuls the particularity of everything that can be granted by transmuting
| |
| − | | |
| − | it into a proof of love, and the very satisfactions that it obtains for need are
| |
| − | | |
| − | reduced to the level of being no more than the crushing of the demand for love.
| |
| − | | |
| − | (Lacan, The Signification of the Phallus)</font></p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><b> </b></p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal">This closed, circuit-like structure of demand bears very
| |
| − | | |
| − | closely on the drive, as we shall see. The mutual co-dependency of mother and
| |
| − | | |
| − | child, subject and object, cosseted in a womblike world which attempts to suture
| |
| − | | |
| − | over the cuts of language, Lacan will term imaginary, a retroactively
| |
| − | | |
| − | constructed fantasy created by the ego. This fantasy enables the speaking
| |
| − | | |
| − | subject, the subject of language, some partial and temporary access to what
| |
| − | | |
| − | Lacan names <i>jouissance</i>, the satisfaction, or complete enjoyment, which
| |
| − | | |
| − | language denies him by separating him from his body, and thus the body of the
| |
| − | | |
| − | Other. However, as a mode of being, a way to live in the world, such a fantasy
| |
| − | | |
| − | is untenable, or, strictly speaking, impossible in the Lacanian sense - an
| |
| − | | |
| − | existence ‘in the real’ without the supporting structure of a symbolic
| |
| − | | |
| − | language-system, a Wittgenstinian private-language game. Such is the Lacanian
| |
| − | | |
| − | definition of psychosis. </p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal">The way out of such a traumatic dead-end, and the entry
| |
| − | | |
| − | into a signifying system which alienates while providing a necessary structure,
| |
| − | | |
| − | is theorized by Lacan as an acceptance of, or at least a confrontation with,
| |
| − | | |
| − | what he calls the <i>Nom du Père</i>, to be heard as both the ‘name’ and ‘no’ of
| |
| − | | |
| − | the father. This localization of the Freudian Oedipus and castration complexes<i>
| |
| − | | |
| − | </i>in the signifier of paternity and the law bears the essential function of a
| |
| − | | |
| − | prohibition. The child is forbidden its secret trysts with the maternal
| |
| − | | |
| − | love-object, its games of signs and seductions, and forced to recognize the
| |
| − | | |
| − | existence of a third term in its dyadic universe, and thus by expansion the
| |
| − | | |
| − | potentially infinite number of such terms. This paternal ‘metaphor’, as Lacan
| |
| − | | |
| − | calls it, acts as the catalyst which will transform the child’s signs into
| |
| − | | |
| − | signifiers, allow him to negotiate with the world and be negotiated by it,
| |
| − | | |
| − | experience acceptance and rejection, love and loss - in short to enter the
| |
| − | | |
| − | symbolic system as a <i>desiring</i> subject. The infantilizing trajectory from
| |
| − | | |
| − | need to demand and back is thus dialecticized by what Lacan terms desire, which
| |
| − | | |
| − | he defines as that which is left over when need is subtracted from demand, i.e.
| |
| − | | |
| − | the specifically human <i>wunschen</i> or wishes which suture over the
| |
| − | | |
| − | frustration of an impossible demand.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal"><b>The drive as the relation of the speaking subject to the
| |
| − | | |
| − | demand of the Other</b></p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal">During the late 1950s, Lacan formulates his first attempts
| |
| − | | |
| − | at a visual topography of the subject in a series of ‘graphs of desire’. The
| |
| − | | |
| − | final version of the graph, as detailed in the 1960 conference paper ‘The
| |
| − | | |
| − | Subversion of the Subject’, defines the drive as ($<>D) - the relation of (<>) the speaking
| |
| − | | |
| − | subject ($) to the demand of the Other (D). As we have seen, this relation forms
| |
| − | | |
| − | a circuit-like structure, based on a mutual co-dependency of terms. The drive
| |
| − | | |
| − | might be described as a compromise formation in that both subject and Other
| |
| − | | |
| − | depend upon each other to exist, to be recognized as existing. Thus the absolute
| |
| − | | |
| − | subjection to demand implies the dissolution of the subject into an object - an
| |
| − | | |
| − | object which <i>makes the Other exist</i>, exemplified in Schreber’s psychotic
| |
| − | | |
| − | delusion that he was the target of neuron rays sent by God to impregnate him.
| |
| − | | |
| − | And in turn the freedom of the subject from the demand of the Other - this is
| |
| − | | |
| − | one way in which Lacan theorizes the aim of analysis - requires the <i>
| |
| − | | |
| − | dissolution</i> <i>of the Other</i> as existing, its dematerialization as a
| |
| − | | |
| − | locus of meaningful signifiers.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal">The speaking subject - which we can specify here as the
| |
| − | | |
| − | subject who comes to speak in analysis (we might say that the psychotic, rather
| |
| − | | |
| − | than speaking, is <i>spoken</i>) - exists in a sort of limbo between these
| |
| − | | |
| − | two extremes, pure subjectivity and pure objectivity, and is thus for Lacan
| |
| − | | |
| − | fundamentally split, fissured, lacking in substance. The subject of the
| |
| − | | |
| − | unconscious exists only as the gap, the alterity, between the signifiers which
| |
| − | | |
| − | represent it to consciousness. If desire can be theorized as the metonymical
| |
| − | | |
| − | attempt to sustain these signifiers, to condense and displace them, break them
| |
| − | | |
| − | up and put them back together again, then demand, by contrast, can be thought of
| |
| − | | |
| − | as an oppositional process which attempts to mortify the signifier, fixating it
| |
| − | | |
| − | in the unconscious as a sign. The drive is precisely the orbital movement around
| |
| − | | |
| − | such a sign <i>qua</i> drive-object.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal">The following case vignette by the Lacanian analyst Marie-Hélène Brousse provides a clinical application of the ideas we have just
| |
| − | | |
| − | been discussing:</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;"><font size="2">I have a patient who is
| |
| − | | |
| − | grappling with her mother’s desire because she can’t decide whether or not to
| |
| − | | |
| − | have a baby. In reference to her mother’s desire she can only remember one
| |
| − | | |
| − | sentence. It’s a memory of her mother being furious with her children, running
| |
| − | | |
| − | after them saying ‘I’m going to kill you’. The signifier of her mother’s desire
| |
| − | | |
| − | is ‘I’m going to kill you’. In a sense, my patient was constituted on the basis
| |
| − | | |
| − | of those signifiers, to kill a child. It’s her interpretation of the Other’s
| |
| − | | |
| − | demand. The Other’s demand is ‘die’!</font></p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;"><font size="2">In the case of my patient
| |
| − | | |
| − | and her mother, the Other’s demand is quite simple: the definitive silence of
| |
| − | | |
| − | the children. She demands that they be quiet, and that is the ultimate
| |
| − | | |
| − | consequence. In that case, the mother’s demand, ‘be quiet’, can be understood as
| |
| − | | |
| − | ‘be dead’ – the object of the patient’s fantasy. In her fantasy she always
| |
| − | | |
| − | appears as disappearing. What is her object? Her own disappearance as an object.
| |
| − | | |
| − | (Brousse, The Drive II)</font></p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal"><b> </b></p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal"><b>All drives are partial drives</b></p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal"><b> </b></p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal">Lacan follows Freud in stating that the object of the drive
| |
| − | | |
| − | is variable, which is to say it has no natural object:</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;"><font size="2">This is what Freud tells us.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Let us look at what he says - as far as the object in the drive is concerned,
| |
| − | | |
| − | let it be clear that it is, strictly speaking, of no importance. It is a matter
| |
| − | | |
| − | of total indifference…How should one conceive of the drive, so that one can say
| |
| − | | |
| − | that, in the drive, whatever it may be, it is indifferent? As far as the oral
| |
| − | | |
| − | drive is concerned, for example, it is obvious that it is not a question of
| |
| − | | |
| − | food, nor of the memory of food, nor the echo of food, nor the mother’s care,
| |
| − | | |
| − | but of something that is called the breast…If Freud makes a remark to the effect
| |
| − | | |
| − | that the object in the drive is of no importance, it is probably because the
| |
| − | | |
| − | breast, in its function as object, is to be revised in its entirety. (Lacan,
| |
| − | | |
| − | Seminar XI)</font></p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal">For Lacan, this function of the object is to mark the place
| |
| − | | |
| − | of a primordial lack or void created by the subject’s accession to language, a
| |
| − | | |
| − | piece or fragment of the real body which eludes both imaginary representation
| |
| − | | |
| − | and symbolic elucidation. Thus the breast will be theorized in terms of a lost
| |
| − | | |
| − | object, an absence for the subject to recreate in his fantasy. Lacan writes this
| |
| − | | |
| − | lost object as <i>a </i>(<i>autre</i>, or 'other'), defining it as the object-cause of desire, the
| |
| − | | |
| − | traumatic object of separation which the subject ($) attempts to refind in a
| |
| − | | |
| − | fantasized image ($<><i>a</i>) and thus annul. Its horizon is that of a cut at
| |
| − | | |
| − | the edges of the body, where the subject attempts to define inside and outside,
| |
| − | | |
| − | subjectivity and Otherness:</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;"><font size="2">Let us note that this
| |
| − | | |
| − | characteristic of the cut is no less obviously prevalent in the object described
| |
| − | | |
| − | by analytic theory: the mamilla, the feces, the phallus (as an imaginary
| |
| − | | |
| − | object), and the urinary flow. (An unthinkable list, unless we add, as I do, the
| |
| − | | |
| − | phoneme, the gaze, the voice…and the nothing). For isn’t it plain to see that
| |
| − | | |
| − | the characteristic of being partial, rightly emphasized in objects, is
| |
| − | | |
| − | applicable not because these objects are part of a total object, which the body
| |
| − | | |
| − | is assumed to be, but because they only partially represent the function that
| |
| − | | |
| − | produces them. A common characteristic of these objects as I formulate them is
| |
| − | | |
| − | that they have no specular image, in other words, no alterity. It is to this
| |
| − | | |
| − | object that cannot be grasped in the mirror that the specular image lends its
| |
| − | | |
| − | clothes. (Lacan, The Subversion of the Subject)</font></p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal">The object <i>a</i>, as a hollow, an empty husk at the
| |
| − | | |
| − | limits of the body, can thus be represented in the drive by any specular object
| |
| − | | |
| − | of consciousness, but this representation remains partial, incomplete, in the
| |
| − | | |
| − | same way that the 1 can only partially represent the 0, and the signifier can
| |
| − | | |
| − | only partially represent the real. In a sense, every drive-object is by nature
| |
| − | | |
| − | fetishistic in its veiling of the anxiety-provoking object <i>a </i>which it
| |
| − | | |
| − | embodies. This essential disjunction between the object and its function leads
| |
| − | | |
| − | Lacan to rethink the hypothesis of a series of partial ‘component’ sexual drives
| |
| − | | |
| − | (i.e. oral, anal, etc) which integrate to form a ‘developmentally mature’ genital
| |
| − | | |
| − | drive in the subject. In place of this teleology, denounced variously as a
| |
| − | | |
| − | normalizing social construct and an idealistic fantasy, Lacan affirms the logic
| |
| − | | |
| − | of Freud’s ‘polymorphous perversion’. Any part of the body can become
| |
| − | | |
| − | sexualized. All drives are partial to the extent that they ‘know nothing’ about
| |
| − | | |
| − | the imaginary unity of the subject (or indeed the ‘sexual responsibilities’
| |
| − | | |
| − | instated by his super-ego) - instead of this ‘Gestalt’ they form a ‘montage’ of
| |
| − | | |
| − | discontinuous elements which in Seminar XI Lacan compares to a Surrealist
| |
| − | | |
| − | painting. </p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal"><b>The structure of the Lacanian drive</b></p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal"><b> </b></p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal">If the drives are not a product of nature, if they are
| |
| − | | |
| − | ‘constructed’ in some way, this is not to say that they are therefore
| |
| − | | |
| − | ‘malleable’, that they can be changed or reformulated at will. We touch here on
| |
| − | | |
| − | the Lacanian critique of recent gender theory such as the work of Judith Butler.
| |
| − | | |
| − | The relation of the subject to <i>jouissance</i>, to the satisfaction produced
| |
| − | | |
| − | by the drive, is for Lacan a very intimate one, and on an unconscious level it
| |
| − | | |
| − | is often a relation the subject wants to know nothing about, let alone change.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Let us recall Freud’s image of the mind as the site of an ongoing archeological
| |
| − | | |
| − | excavation, the deepest layers being all but inaccessible to consciousness. We
| |
| − | | |
| − | might speak of a subject ‘in thrall’ to, and ‘enthralled by’, the drive. This
| |
| − | | |
| − | notion of servitude, ‘thralldom’, indexes the degree of attachment which bonds
| |
| − | | |
| − | the subject of the drive to the Other.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal">In neurosis, there exists an unconscious equation between
| |
| − | | |
| − | demand and lack. To demand something is to be without it. As far as the neurotic
| |
| − | | |
| − | is concerned, the demand of the Other, as expressed in its signifiers, thus
| |
| − | | |
| − | indicates the nature of its lack. However, according to the logic of the
| |
| − | | |
| − | signifier, this nature is destined to remain opaque to the subject, mysterious,
| |
| − | | |
| − | always represented by another signifier - we might say that it is experienced as
| |
| − | | |
| − | the desire of the Other (What does the Other want?). This desire is precisely
| |
| − | | |
| − | what is intolerable for the obsessional, who always does his best to reduce it
| |
| − | | |
| − | to a demand, and thus himself to an object. By contrast the hysteric cannot bear
| |
| − | | |
| − | the intransigence of the Other’s demand, depending instead on the
| |
| − | | |
| − | desire of the Other in order to exist as a subject. </p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal">Lacan will formulate the desire of the Other as S(<s>O</s>),
| |
| − | | |
| − | the signifier of a lack in the Other. A signifier is always missing, the
| |
| − | | |
| − | signifier which would complete the subject by allowing him to satisfy the
| |
| − | | |
| − | Other’s demand (<i>That’s</i> what the Other wants). The subject of the drive
| |
| − | | |
| − | attempts to locate this missing signifier in the Other’s demand by <i>
| |
| − | | |
| − | identifying with the object of that demand </i>(i.e. by ‘being dead’ in the case
| |
| − | | |
| − | of Brousse’s patient). The logic of the drive resides in this movement of
| |
| − | | |
| − | identification, a reflexive movement from subject to object and back again,
| |
| − | | |
| − | whose aim is to return to its source.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | | |
| − | [[Image:Goal.jpg|center]]
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal" align="center"> </p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal" align="center"> <span style="font-size: 11pt;">
| |
| − | | |
| − | (Lacan, Seminar XI)</span></p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal"><i>La pulsion en fait le tour</i> as Lacan says in French,
| |
| − | | |
| − | the drive always misses its object - precisely because the object itself is a
| |
| − | | |
| − | lack, it has no corresponding signifier. We might say that the pervert takes the
| |
| − | http://www.nosubject.com/Special:Upload
| |
| − | Upload file
| |
| − | neurotic’s identification to its logical conclusion and <i>becomes</i> the
| |
| − | | |
| − | object of the Other’s demand, working ceaselessly to make of the Other a pure
| |
| − | | |
| − | subject of <i>jouissance</i>. Lacan will write the perverse fantasy as an
| |
| − | | |
| − | ‘inverse’ neurosis (<i>a</i><>$) - freed of neurotic guilt, the pervert is thus
| |
| − | | |
| − | all the more certain of his own satisfaction. </p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal">In Seminar XI, Lacan draws on Freud’s work ‘A Child is
| |
| − | | |
| − | Being Beaten’ to underscore the grammatical edifice of the drive, its existence
| |
| − | | |
| − | as a combinatory of subject ($), verb (<>), and object (D) - in this way it
| |
| − | | |
| − | embodies dialectically the logical structure of fantasy ($<><i>a</i>). The
| |
| − | | |
| − | alternating status of the verb, represented by the lozenge, as both active and
| |
| − | | |
| − | passive is rendered in French as ‘se faire’ - to make oneself be (seen, heard,
| |
| − | | |
| − | shitted, sucked etc). There are thus two moments to the drive - the scopic
| |
| − | | |
| − | drive is both voyeuristic (making oneself be seen by the Other) and
| |
| − | | |
| − | exhibitionist (making the Other be seen by oneself). The masochist enjoys his
| |
| − | | |
| − | own pain from the position of the sadist, and the sadist enjoys the pain of his
| |
| − | | |
| − | victim from the position of the masochist.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal">In a sense, the circular nature of the drive offers no way
| |
| − | | |
| − | forward, its logic is binary. The ‘constant pressure’ is resolved by an
| |
| − | | |
| − | alternation between two terms - everything and nothing. Thus Lacan states that
| |
| − | | |
| − | every drive is a manifestation of the death drive, its compulsion to repeat
| |
| − | | |
| − | encapsulated in the image of a serpent chasing its own tail.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal"> <a></a></p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal"><b>Conclusion: from Drive to Desire</b></p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal"><b> </b></p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal">In concluding I would like to refer to a distinction
| |
| − | | |
| − | Jacques-Alain Miller draws between drive and desire in a commentary on one of
| |
| − | | |
| − | Lacan’s papers: </p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;"><font size="2">The subject is happy. The
| |
| − | | |
| − | want-to-be is on the side of desire. But on the side of the drive, there is no
| |
| − | | |
| − | want-to-be. What Freud calls the drive is an activity which always comes off. It
| |
| − | | |
| − | leads to sure success, whereas desire leads to a sure unconscious formation,
| |
| − | | |
| − | namely, a bungled action or slip: ‘I missed my turn, ‘I forgot my keys’, etc.
| |
| − | | |
| − | That is desire. The drive, on the contrary, always has its keys in its hand.
| |
| − | | |
| − | (Miller, Commentary on Lacan’s ‘On Freud’s <i>Trieb</i> and the Psychoanalysts
| |
| − | | |
| − | Desire’)</font></p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal">Implicit in this distinction is an opposition between old
| |
| − | | |
| − | and new. If the drive succeeds, it is because it has nowhere to go, it has been
| |
| − | | |
| − | there before, its route is already decided. Desire, on the other hand, can
| |
| − | | |
| − | always take a detour, reformulate its signifiers, interpret its own mistakes. In
| |
| − | | |
| − | this sense, it can function as a learning experience, allowing the subject, in
| |
| − | | |
| − | the words of the writer Samuel Beckett, to ‘fail again...fail better’.<a></a></p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal"> <a></a><a></a></p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal" align="center"><u><b>Bibliography</b></u></p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal"><b> </b></p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><i>Brousse, Marie-Helene</i>
| |
| − | | |
| − | ‘The Drive (I)’ and ‘The Drive (II)’ in <u>Reading Seminar XI</u>, in R.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Feldstein, B. Fink, M. Jaanus (eds.), <u>Reading Seminar XI</u>, State
| |
| − | | |
| − | University of New York Press, 1996</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal"><i> </i></p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><i>Freud, Sigmund </i>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <font color="#000000" face="Times New Roman,Times,Times NewRoman"><u>
| |
| − | | |
| − | The Standard Edition of the Complete Works of Sigmund Freud, 24 volumes</u>,
| |
| − | | |
| − | ed. James Strachey et al., The Hogarth Press and the Institute of
| |
| − | | |
| − | Psychoanalysis, 1953-74</font></p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> </p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><i>Lacan, Jacques </i> <u>Écrits: A Selection</u>,
| |
| − | | |
| − | trans. Alan Sheridan, Routledge, 1977</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> </p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><i>Ibid.</i> <u>The Seminar.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Book XI. The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis</u>, trans. Alan
| |
| − | | |
| − | Sheridan, Hogarth Press, 1977</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> </p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><i>Ibid.</i> ‘On Freud’s “<i>Trieb</i>”
| |
| − | | |
| − | and the psychoanalyst’s desire’, trans. Bruce Fink, in R. Feldstein, B. Fink, M.
| |
| − | | |
| − | Jaanus (eds.), <u>Reading Seminar XI</u>, State University of New York Press,
| |
| − | | |
| − | 1996</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> </p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><i>Laplanche, Jean </i>and <i>
| |
| − | | |
| − | Pontalis, Jean-Bertrand </i><u>The Language of Psychoanalysis</u>, Karnac Books,
| |
| − | | |
| − | 1996</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> </p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><i>Miller, Jacques-Alain </i>
| |
| − | | |
| − | ‘Commentary on Lacan’s ‘On Freud’s “<i>Trieb</i>” and the psychoanalyst’s
| |
| − | | |
| − | desire’’, trans. Bruce Fink, in R. Feldstein, B. Fink, M. Jaanus (eds.), <u>
| |
| − | | |
| − | Reading Seminar XI</u>, State University of New York Press, 1996<a></a><a></a><a></a><a></a><a></a></p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | == References ==
| |
| | <references/> | | <references/> |
| | + | </div> |
| | | | |
| − | [[Category:Lacan]] | + | [[Category:Psychoanalysis]] |
| | + | [[Category:Jacques Lacan]] |
| | + | [[Category:Science]] |
| | + | [[Category:Real]] |
| | + | [[Category:Dictionary]] |
| | + | [[Category:Concepts]] |
| | [[Category:Terms]] | | [[Category:Terms]] |
| − | [[Category:Concepts]]
| + | {{OK}} |
| − | [[Category:Psychoanalysis]]-->
| + | |
| | + | __NOTOC__ |
