Changes

===Psychoanalysis===The concept of [[fantasy]] is central to [[Freud]]'s [[Works of Sigmund Freud|work]].<ref>"[[Fantasy]]" is spelt "[[fantasy|phantasy]]" in the ''[[Standard Edition]]''.</ref> Indeed, the origin of [[psychoanalysis]] is bound up with [[Freud]]'s recognition in 1897 that [[memory|memories]] of [[seduction]] are sometimes the product of [[fantasy]] rather than traces of real sexual abuse. This crucial moment in the development of [[Freud]]'s thought (which is often simplistically dubbed "the abandonment of the seduction theory") seems to imply that [[fantasy]] is opposed to [[reality]], a purely illusory product of the imagination which stands in the way of a correct perception of reality. However, such a view of [[fantasy]] cannot be maintained in [[psychoanalytic theory]], since [[reality]] is not seen as an unproblematic given in which there is a single objectively correct way of perceiving, but as something which is itself discursively constructed.

===Scene===[[Freud]] uses the term "[[fantasy]]", then, to denote a [[scene]] which is presented to the imagination and which stages an [[unconscious]] [[desire]].  The [[subject]] invariably plays a part in this [[scene]], even when this is not immediately apparent.  The [[fantasy|fantasized]] [[scene]] may be [[conscious]] or [[unconscious]].  When [[unconscious]], the [[analyst]] must reconstruct it on the basis of other clues.<ref>{{F}} "[[Works of Sigmund Freud|A Child Is Being Beaten]]," 1919e. [[SE]] XVII, 177.</ref>

While [[Lacan]] accepts [[Freud]]'s formulations on the importance of [[fantasy]] and on its visual quality as a scenario which stages [[desire]], he emphasizes the protective function of [[fantasy]].  [[Lacan]] compares the [[fantasy]] [[scene]] to a frozen [[image]] on a cinema screen; jut as the film may be stopped at a certain point in order to avoid showing a [[trauma]]tic [[scene]] which follows, so also the [[fantasy]] [[scene]] is a [[defence]] which veils [[castration]].<ref>{{S4}} ppp.119-120</ref>  The [[fantasy]] is thus characterized by a fixed and immobile quality.

Although "[[fantasy]]" only emerges as a significant term in [[Lacan]]'s work from 1957 on, the concept of a relatively stable mode of [[defence]] is evident earlier on.  This concept is at the root both of [[Lacan]]'s idea of [[fantasy]] and his notion of [[clinical structure]]; both are conceived of as a relatively stable way of defending oneself against [[castration]], against the [[lack]] in the [[Other]].  Each [[clinical structure]] may thus be distinguished by the particular way in which it uses a [[fantasy]] [[scene]] to veil the [[lack]] in the [[Other]].

The [[neurotic]] [[fantasy]], which [[Lacan]] formalizes in the [[matheme]] ('''$ <> a'''), appears in the [[graph of desire]] as the [[subject]]'s response to the enigmatic [[desire]] of the [[Other]], a way of answering the question about what the [[Other]] wants from me. (''[[Che vuoi?]]'')<ref>{{E}} p.313</ref> The [[matheme]] is to be read: the [[bar]]red [[subject]] in relation to the [[object]].  The [[perverse]] [[fantasy]] inverts this relation to the [[object]], and is thus formalized as '''''a'' <> $'''.<ref>{{Ec}} p.774</ref>

Although the [[matheme]] ('''S <> a''') designates the general [[structure]] of the [[neurotic]] [[fantasy]], [[Lacan]] also provides more specific formulas for the [[fantasy]] of the [[hysteric]] and that of the [[obsessional neurotic]].<ref>{{S8}} p.295</ref>   While the various formulas of [[fantasy]] indicate the common features of the [[fantasy|fantasies]] of those who share the same [[clinical structure]], the [[analyst]] must also attend to the unique features which characterise each [[patient]]'s particular fantasmatic scenario.

These unique features express the [[subject]]'s particular mode of ''[[jouissance]]'' though in a distorted way.   The distortion evident in the [[fantasy]] marks it as a compromise formation; the [[fantasy]] is thus both that which enables the [[subject]] to sustain his [[desire]],<ref>{{S11}} p.185; {{Ec}} p.780</ref> and "that by which the subject sustains himself at the level of his vanishing desire."<ref>{{E}} p.272</ref>

[[Lacan]] holds that beyond all the myriad images which appear in [[dream]]s and elsewhere there is always one "[[fantasy|fundamental fantasy]]" which is [[unconscious]].<ref>{{S8}} p.127</ref>  In the course of [[psychoanalytic treatment]], the [[analyst]] reconstructs the [[analysand]]'s [[fantasy]] in all its details.   However, the [[treatment]] does not stop there; the analysand must go on to "[[fantasy|traverse the fundamental fantasy]]."<ref>{{S11}} p.273</ref>.   In other words, the [[treatment]] must produce some modification of the [[subject]]'s fundamental mode of [[defence]], some alteration in his mode of ''[[jouissance]]''.

Although [[Lacan]] recognises the power of the [[image]] in [[fantasy]], he insists that this is due not to any intrinsic quality of the [[image]] in itself but to the place which it occupies in a [[symbolic]] [[structure]]; the [[fantasy]] is always "an image set to work in a signifying structure."<ref>{{E}} p.272</ref>

[[Lacan]] criticises the [[Klein]]ian account of [[fantasy]] for not taking this [[symbolic]] [[structure]] fully into account, and thus remaining at the level of the [[imaginary]]; "any attempt to reduce [fantasy] to the imagination . . . is a permanent misconception."<ref>{{E}} p.272</ref>   In the 1960s, [[Lacan]] devotes a whole year of his [[seminar]] to discussing what he calls "the logic of fantasy," again stressing the importance of the [[signification|signifying]] [[structure]] in [[fantasy]].<ref>{{S14}}</ref>