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"[[fantasy]]" ([[Fr]]. ''{{Top}}[[fantasme]]''){{Bottom}}

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.

===Fantasy Versus Reality===Indeed, Therefore the origin of [[psychoanalysischange]] is bound up with in [[Freud]]'s recognition [[ideas]] in 1897 that does not imply a [[rejection]] of the fundamentally discursive and imaginative [[nature]] of [[memory]]; [[memory|memories]] of [[seductionpast]] events are sometimes the product of continually [[being]] reshaped in accordance with [[unconscious]] [[desire]]s, so much so that [[symptom]]s originate not in any supposed "[[objective]] facts" but in a [[complex]] [[dialectic]] in which [[fantasy]] rather than traces of real sexual abuseplays a vital [[role]].

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. Therefore the change in [[Freud]]'s ideas in 1897 does not imply a rejection of the fundamentally discursive and imaginative nature of [[memory]]; [[memory|memories]] of past events are continually being reshaped in accordance with [[unconscious]] [[desire]]s, so much so that [[symptom]]s originate not in any supposed "objective facts" but in a complex [[dialectic]] in which [[fantasy]] plays a vital role. [[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. 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}} p.119-120</ref> The [[fantasy]] is thus characterized by a fixed ===Defence and immobile quality. --Clinical Structure===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 [[lackveil]] in the [[Other]]. The [[neurotic]] [[fantasylack]], which [[Lacan]] formalizes in the [[matheme]] ($ D 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]].

===Neurotic Fantasy===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'' D <> $'''.<ref>{{Ec}} p.774</ref>

Although ===Fundamental Fantasy===[[Lacan]] holds that beyond all the matheme (SO a) designates 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 general structure course of [[psychoanalytic treatment]], the neurotic [[analyst]] reconstructs the [[analysand]]'s [[fantasy]] in all its details. However, Lacan also provides more specific formulas for the [[treatment]] does not stop there; the analysand must go on to "[[fantasy of |traverse the hysteric and that of the obsessional neuroticfundamental fantasy]]."<ref>{{S8S11}} p.295273</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]]''.

While == In the various formulas work of Slavoj Žižek ==Like many of Žižek’s foundational theories, fantasy indicate derives from the [[psychoanalytic]] work of Freud and Lacan. For Freud, fantasy emerged in his 1897 discovery that [[memories]] of seduction may be the result of fantasy as opposed to actual sexual [[violence]]. In common features parlance, fantasy denotes a [[separation]] from reality, a [[construction]] that is fictional and therefore opposed to reality. Freud’s discovery, though, challenges this widespread [[understanding]]. For psychoanalysis, reality is problematic when it is assumed that it distinguishes authentic or unmediated [[experience]] for the subject. Reality is more properly [[understood]] as a way of perceiving that is already stained by the fantasies [[human]] subject’s desire. Therefore, reality is already a [[subjective]] [[process]] mediated by desire and constructed discursively. Fantasy, then, [[acts]] as a scene that stages desire in the imagination of the subject. For this [[reason]], Lacan states in his fourteenth seminar, ''The [[Logic of those who share Fantasy]]'': “Desire is the same clinical structure[[essence]] of reality” (''S''XIV: 6). The principal point for Lacan, here, is that fantasy is the analyst must also attend to setting for desire where fantasy provides the unique features [[matrix]] through which characterise each patient's particular fantasmatic scenario[[subjects]] begin to desire.

These unique features express the subject's particular mode of For Žižek, fantasy is not an exercise in fulfilment, contentment or [[satisfaction]]./OUISSANCEInstead, though in it provides a scene for a distorted wayprivileged yet [[arbitrary]] object that embodies the force of desire. The distortion evident foundational premise of fantasy in this rendering lies in the [[claim]] that desire is not something that is given; rather, it is assembled. Therefore, fantasy marks it acts as a compromise formation; structure that provides the coordinates for a subject’s desire. That is, fantasy is thus both provides the idea of a privileged object that which enables desire fixates on in order to provide the subject with its [[position]] in relation to sustain his it. This privileged object acts as the ''[[objet petit a]]'' or object-[[cause]] of desire,<ref>{{S11}} p.185; {{Ec}} pThis object [[structures]] the subject’s experience of the [[world]] in so far as this object is taken as more than its [[material]] property.780</ref> The object that consumes desire and "therefore occupies the fantasy of the subject must first fall prey to the [[illusion]] that it is more than its pragmatic material. The object is marked by which this structure as being more than its materiality, as being endowed with the subject sustains himself at promise to [[satisfy]] the level of his vanishing desirethat necessitates it."<ref>{{E}} pThus, fantasy acts as the mode whereby the subject learns to desire because through fantasy the subject is situated as [[desiring]].272</ref>

Lacan holds The role fantasy plays is twofold: [[universal]] and particular. Fantasy is a universal structure that indexes, points or directs our desire towards a [[physical]] manifestation that occupies desire. Yet, what is particular to each and every subject is the way fantasy structures the relation to the trauma of lack predicated by desire. This constitutive lack that beyond all the myriad images privileged object promises to fulfil acts as a screen that orients each fantasy, which appear in dreams turn supports desire in order to shield the subject from the trauma of lack itself. In this way, fantasy bestows reality with a fictional [[coherence]] and consistency that appears to fulfil the lack that constitutes [[social]] reality. Hence, Žižek’s foremost contribution to this long-theorized notion lies in showing how fantasy serves as a [[political]] structure. He reveals how fantasy can fill in [[ideological]] gaps and elsewhere there is always one provide access to [[obscene]] ''[[jouissance]]'fundamental fantasy' , and he contends that a failure to explicate the essence of political beliefs does not imply any failure in the hold these beliefs have over us. Instead, political [[ideologies]] serve to give subjects a means of envisioning the world in which such a failure emerges as evidence as to how transcendent is unconscioustheir particular [[ideology]]. Fantasy serves [[politics]] precisely in that each political group must recognize its point of view as manifested in the extrapolitical fantasy [[objects]] customary within that specific [[nation]], [[culture]] or [[religion]]. If not, these groups must displace the sitting ideologies’ fantasy objects with their chosen manifestations.<ref>{{S8}} pConsequently, for Žižek, fantasy goes beyond the usual symbolic coordinates, so that [[traversing]] the fantasy does not mean getting rid of the fantasy but being even more taken up by it.127</ref>

Fantasy, therefore, acts as a way for the subject to envisage a way out of the [[dissatisfaction]] produced by the [[demands]] of [[social reality]] through these objects or ideas (e.g. [[freedom]], brotherhood, the [[Church]]). In this [[sense]], fantasy is a [[psychological]] structure that manifests itself in a [[phenomenological]] [[form]]. And, while fantasy might not provide us with the course object itself, it can provide something of psychoanalytic treatmentequal consequence: the scene of attaining the privileged object that renders attainment as a possibility. Fantasy organizes and domesticates the ''jouissance'' that provides the framework through which we experience reality; therefore, this structure – and the analyst reconstructs arbitrary object that animates it – acts as a defence against the analysand[[traumatic]] [[loss]] of ''s jouissance'' that occurs through entering [[the symbolic]] order. In turn, fantasy can surface in a more evident socio-symbolic way in all its detailswhich it assuages unrest by depoliticizing the social [[body]] for the purposes of accepting a ruling ideology. Fantasy thus serves as a way to distract, even encourage, the [[social body]] from directly engaging with the dissatisfaction of lack. HoweverAlthough lack is constitutive of every human subject, the treatment does not stop there; political advocacy of a social body can [[help]] organize a [[society]] better to manage dissatisfaction as a by-product of the analysand must go demands of that social reality. Therefore, fantasy acts as a way to fracture political [[unity]] by focusing attention on [[individual]] satisfaction imagined to 'traverse be the fundamental fantasy."<ref>{S11}} p.273</ref>promise of a unique privileged object.

In other wordsBecause fantasy offers the promise of satisfaction as part of a privileged object, we [[understand]] this object as being apart from our [[self]]. [[Enjoyment]] derived from this fantasy image is therefore projected onto the treatment must produce some modification Other. As a path to [[repress]] the idea of a non-[[lacking]] subject, the subject we fantasize and therefore imagine as a possibility, we [[project]] onto the Other the enjoyment we lack. Žižek argues that this places the subject's fundamental mode in a position of defenceunderstanding the Other obtaining enjoyment at our expense. Because we are able to fantasize an [[impossible]] enjoyment, we also misattribute this [[impossibility]] to an Other that seems to [[enjoy]] in a way we cannot experience but only imagine. Since fantasy provides us with the coordinates to domesticate our [[desire,]] in order to fulfil lack we rarely attribute lack as an experience beyond our self. The [[distinction]] between our own lack of impossible enjoyment and the non-lacking status of the Other opens the possibility of a violence predicated on destroying the enjoyment we fantasize this Other to possess at our expense. [[The logic of fantasy]] in relation to lack suggests that, if I am lacking, it is because some alteration in his mode other nefarious [[figure]] has stolen it, and thus the lack of lack, as it were, becomes an object of possession under [[capitalism]]. This rendering is consistent with Žižek’s assertion that fantasy leads to all varieties of discrimination: [[racism]], sexism, ageism and [[homophobia]], among [[others]]. Th is non-lacking status takes the form of jouissancea person or [[thing]] we understand through [[cultural]] [[myth]] or [[capitalist]] ideology.

Although Lacan recognises the power of the image in fantasyThe subject [[lacks]], he insists that this is due not to any intrinsic quality of the image in itself but to the place which what it occupies in a symbolic structure; the fantasy lacks is always 'an image set [[nothing]] and each new object fails to work in a signifying structure."<ref>{{E}} psatisfy because it can only offer something.272</ref>

Lacan criticises the Kleinian account of fantasy for not taking this symbolic structure fully into account, and thus remaining at the level of the imaginary; ==See Also=={{See}}* [[Castration]]* [[Hysteria]]* [[Image]]||* ''any attempt to reduce [fantasy[Jouissance]]''* [[Lack]]* [[Matheme]]||* [[Neurosis]]* [[Obsessional neurosis]]* [[Structure]]||* [[Subject]]* [[Treatment]]* [[Unconscious]] to the imagination . . . is a permanent misconception."<ref>{{EAlso}} p.272</ref>

In the 1960s, Lacan devotes a whole year of his seminar to discussing what he calls 'the logic of fantasy' (==References==<div style="font-size:11px" class="references-small"><references /></div>[[Category:Psychoanalysis]][[Category:Jacques Lacan, 1966-7), again stressing the importance of the signifying structure in fantasy.]][[Category:Practice]][[Category:Dictionary]][[Category:Treatment]][[Category:Sexuality]][[Category:Concepts]][[Category:Terms]][[Category:Zizek Dictionary]]{{OK}}__FORCETOC__