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"[[father]]" ([[Fr]]. ''[[père]]'')
[[Lacan]]'s emphasis on the imporance of the [[father]] can be seen as a reaction against the tendency of [[Kleinian psychoanalysis]] and [[object-relations theory]] to place the [[mother]]-[[child]] [[dual relation|relation]] at the heart of [[psychoanalytic theory]].
In opposition to this tendency, [[Lacan]] continually stresses the role of the [[father]] as a third term who, by mediating the [[imaginary]] [[dual relation]]] between the [[mother]] and the [[child]], saves the [[child]] from [[psychosis]] and makes possible an entry into social existence.
The [[father]] is thus more than a mere rival with whom the [[subject]] competes for for the [[mother]]'s [[love]]; he is the representative of the social ordeer as such, and only by identifying with the [[father]] in the [[Oedipus complex]] can the [[subject]] gain entry into this order.
The [[absence] of the [[father]] is therefore an important factor in the aetiology of all psychopathological [[structures]].
-- However, the [[father]] is not a simple concept but a complex one, one which begs the question of what exactly is meant by the term "father."
[[Lacan]] argues that the question "What is a father?" forms the central theme which runs throughout [[Freud]]'s entire work.<ref>{{S4}} p.204-5</ref>
It is in order to answer this question that, from 1953 on, [[Lacan]] stresses the importance of distinguishing between the [[symbolic]] [[father]], the [[imaginary]] [[father]] and the [[real]] [[father]].
---
==The Symbolic Father==
The [[symbolic]] [[father]] is not a real [[being]] but a position, a funciton, and hence is synonymous with the term "paternal function."
This function is none other than that of imposing the [[law]] and regulating [[desire]] in the [[Oedipus complex]], of intervening in the [[imaginary]] [[dual relation]]ship between [[mother]] and [[child]] to introduce a necessary "symbolic distance" between them.<ref>{{S4}} p.161</ref>
<blockquote>"The true function of the Father... is fundamentally to unite (and not to set in opposition) a desire and the Law."<ref>{{E}} p.321</ref></blockquote>
Although the [[symbolic]] [[father]] is not an actual [[subject]] but a osition in the [[symbolic order]], a [[subject]] may nevertheless come to occupy this position, by virtue of exercising the paternal function.
Nobody can ever occupy this position completely.<ref>{{S4}} p.205, 210, 219</ref>
However, the [[symbolic]] [[father]] does not usually intervene by virtue of someone incarnating this function, but in a veiled fashion, for example by being mediated by the discourse of the [[mother]].
---
The [[symbolic]] [[father]] is the fundamental element in the [[structure]] of the [[symbolic order]]; what distinguishes the [[symbolic order]] of [[culture]] from the [[imaginary order]] of [[nature]] is the inscription of a line of male descendence.
By structuring descendence into a series of generations, patrilineality introduces an [[order]] "Who structure is different from the natural order."<ref>{{S3}} p.320</ref>
The [[symbolic]] [[father]] is also the [[dead]] [[father]], the [[father]] of the [[primal horde]] who has been murdered by his own sons.
The [[symbolic]] [[father]] is also referred to as the [[Name-of-the-Father]].
--
The [[presence]] of the [[imaginary]] [[phallus]] as a third term in the [[preoedipal phase|preoedipal]] [imaginary|imaginary triangle]] indicates that the [[symbolic]] [[father]] is alreay functioning at the [[preoedipal phase|preoedipal stage; behind the [[symbolic]] [[mother]], there is always the [[symbolic]] [[faather]].
The [[sychotic], however, doe snot even ge tthis far; indeed, it is the [[absence]] of the [[symbolic]] [[father]] which characteizes the essence of the [[psychotic]] [[structure]].
==The Imaginary Father==
==The imaginary father==
The [[imaginary]] [[father]] is an [[imago]], the composite of all the [[imaginary]] constructs that the [[subject]] builds up in [[fantasy]] around the figure of the [[father]].
This [[imaginary]] construction often bears little relationship to the [[father]] as he is in [[reality]].<ref>{{S4}} p.220</ref>
The [[imaginary]] [[father]] can be construed as an ideal [[father]],<ref>{{S1}} p.156'{{E}} p.321</ref> or the opposite, as "the father who has fucked the kid up."<ref>{{S7}} p.308</ref>
In the former guise, the [[imaginary]] [[father]] is the prototype of [[God]]-figures in [[religion]]s, an all-powerful protector.
In the latter role, the [[imaginary]] [[father]] is both the terrifying father of the [[primal horde]] who imposes the [[incest]] [[taboo]] on his sons,<ref>[[Freud]] 1912-3</ref> and the agent of [[privation]], the [[father]] whom the daughter blames for depriving her of the [[symbolic]] [[phallus]], or its equivalent, a [[child]].<ref>{{S4}} p.98</ref>
In both guises, though, whether as the [[ideal]] [[father]] or as the [[father|cruel]] [[father|agent]] of [[privation]], the [[imaginary father]] is seen as omnipotent.<ref>{{S4}} p.275-6</ref>
[[Psychosis]] and [[perversion]] both involve, in different ways, a reduction of the [[symbolic]] [[father]] to the [[imaginary]] [[father]].
