Jacques Lacan used the French word <i>{{Topp}}[[forclusion</i> (fore-closure) to translated the German term <i>Verwerfung</i>, previously rendered in French as <i>rejet</i> (repudiation). Sigmund Freud had introduced the term along with negation (<i>Verneinung</i>) and repression (<i>Verdrängung</i>) as a defense mechanism.</p>]]{{Bottom}}
<p>Foreclosure is a primordial defense because it does not act ==Jacques Lacan==From his [[doctoral dissertation]] in 1932 on a signifier that is already inscribed within the chain of signifiers, but rather, it rejects the inscription itself. Foreclosure is thus antithetical to <i>Bejahung</iref> (affirmation).{{1932}}</p><pref>This operation one of repudiation especially affects highly meaningful signifiers such as the Name-of-the-Father, the guarantor of castration. central quests which animates [[Lacan viewed the foreclosure of this signifier as the characteristic mechanism of psychosis. In "On a Question Prior to any Possible Treatment of Psychosis" (<i>Écrits</i>), he wrote: "I will thus take <i>Verwerfung</i> to be foreclosure of the signifier. At the point at which the Name-of-the-Father ]]'s [[work]] is summoned—and we shall see how—a pure and simple hole may answer in the Other; due to the lack of the metaphoric effect, this hole will give rise to a corresponding hole in the place of phallic signification" (p. 191). To paraphrase, let us say that when the subject calls upon the Father to guarantee the law that situates both the subject and his desire in the Other, he encounters only an echo in a void that triggers a cascade of delusional metaphors. These readily become organized around the fantasmatic presence of an authority who is suspected of having intrusive or criminal intentions; it is as if the foreclosure of the Name-of-the-Father made present in the Real a malevolent authority desiring to commit sexual abuse or homicide.</p><p>Why does foreclosure come about? One explanation is that the child has been exposed to a mother who has refused to recognize the law, either because it does not situate her in accordance with her desires, or because it compels her to separate herself from its product. It may also happen that the real father reveals himself to be incapable of inscribing himself into a symbolic line-age, and consequently invalidates it (cf. Schreber's father in "Psycho-Analytic Notes on an Autobiographical Account of a Case of Paranoia [Dementia Paranoides[identifying]]," 1911c). But not infrequently, skipping a generation, the child of a psychotic couple may validate the Name-of-the-Father on its own, based on what he finds in language and verifies with the help of substitute parent figures.</p><p>Could specific forms of foreclosure be responsible [[psychical]] cause for [[psychosis]]. In the division course of the psychoses into paranoia and schizophrenia? Nothing points to addressing this conclusionproblem, even if paranoia is an attempt at a cure through the designation of a real, albeit a persecutory father. This designation turns the signifier into a sign of certain truthtwo themes are constant.</p><p>Many have asked whether psychoanalytic treatment can repair a foreclosure. Case histories do not provide any clear answers.</p>
<p>Let us recall that Schreber, for his part, found a kind ==The Exclusion of stabilizing by accepting emasculation the Father==As early as being "consonant with 1938 [[Lacan]] relates the Order origin of [[psychosis]] to an [[exclusion]] of Things" (p. 48); by becoming a womanthe [[father]] from the [[family]] [[structure]], he could attract with the divine presence that safeguarded him. Equally interesting are studies consequent reduction of borderline cases. It seems that the latter more likely result from a denial or annulment of the Nameto [[mother]]-[[child]] [[dual|relation]]s.<ref>{{1938}} p. 49</ref> Later on in his [[Works of-Jacques Lacan|work]], when [[Lacan]] distinguishes between the-Father[[real]], with a predictable failure of the law[[imaginary]] and [[symbolic]] [[father]], but without producing he specifies that it is the reshapings [[absence]] of the real (its fragmentation or its investment by a persecutory figure) that are characteristic of foreclosure[[symbolic]] [[father]] which is linked to [[psychosis]].</p>
==The Freudian concept of ''Verwerfung''==
[[Freud]] uses the term ''[[foreclosure|Verwerfung]]''<ref>Translated as "[[foreclosure|repudiation]]" in the [[Standard Edition]]</ref> in a [[number]] of disparate ways, but [[Lacan]] focuses on one in [[particular]]: namely, the [[sense]] of a specific [[defence mechanism]] which is distinct from [[repression]] (''[[repression|Verdrängung]]''), in which "the ego rejects the incompatible [[idea]] together with its [[affect]] and behaves as if the idea had never occurred to the ego at all."<ref>{{F}} "[[Work of Sigmund Freud|The Neuro-Psychoses of Defence]]", 1894a: [[SE]] III, 58</ref> In 1954, basing himself on a [[reading]] of the "[[Wolf Man]]" [[case]] [[history]],<ref>{{F}} "[[Work of Sigmund Freud|From the History of an Infantile Neurosis]]," 1918b: [[SE]] XVII, 79-80</ref> [[Lacan]] [[identifies]] ''[[foreclosure|Verwerfung]]'' as the specific [[mechanism]] of [[psychosis]], in which an element is rejected [[outside]] the [[symbolic order]] just as if it had never [[existence|existed]].<ref>{{Ec}} p. 386-7; {{S1}} p. 57-9</ref>
At this [[time]] [[Lacan]] proposes various ways of translating the term ''[[Foreclosure|Verwerfung]]'' into [[French]], rendering it as ''rejet'', ''refus'' and ''retranchement''.<ref>{{S1}} p. 43; {{Ec}} p. 386</ref> It is not until 1956 that [[Lacan]] proposes the term ''[[foreclosure|forclusion]]'' (a term in use in the French [[legal]] [[system]]; in [[English]], "[[foreclosure]]") as the best way of translating ''[[foreclosure|Verwerfung]]'' into [[French]].<ref>{{S3}} p. 321</ref> It is this term that [[Lacan]] continues to use for the rest of his work.
==Name-of-the-Father==
In 1954, when [[Lacan]] first turns to the [[Freud]]ian [[concept]] of ''[[foreclosure|Verwerfung]]'' in his [[search]] for a specific [[defence|mechanism]] for [[psychosis]], it is not clear exactly what is repudiated; it can be [[castration]] that is repudiated, or [[speech]] itself, or "the [[genital]] plane".<ref>{{S1}} p. 53, 58</ref> [[Lacan]] finds a solution to the problem at the end of 1957, when he proposes the idea that it is the [[Name-of-the-Father]] -- a [[fundamental signifier]] -- that is the [[object]] of [[foreclosure]].<ref>{{E}} p. 217</ref> In this way [[Lacan]] is able to combine in one [[formula]] both of the themes that had previously dominated his [[thinking]] on the [[causality]] of [[psychosis]] -- the [[absence]] of the [[father]] and the concept of ''[[foreclosure|Verwerfung]]''. This formula remains at the heart of [[Lacan]]'s thinking on [[psychosis]] throughout the rest of his [[Work of Jacques Lacan|work]].
===Psychotic Structure===
When the [[Name-of-the-Father]] is [[foreclosed]] for a particular [[subject]], it leaves a [[hole]] in the [[symbolic order]] which can never be filled; the [[subject]] can then be said to have a [[psychotic]] [[structure]], even if he shows none of the classical [[sign]]s of [[psychosis]]. Sooner or later, when the foreclosed [[Name-of-the-Father]] reappears in the [[real]], the [[subject]] is unable to assimilate it, and the result of this "collision with the inassimilable signifier" is the "entry into psychosis" proper, characterised typically by the onset of [[hallucinations]] and/or [[delusions]].<ref>{{S3}} p. 321</ref>
===Repression, Negation, Projection===
[[Foreclosure]] is to be distinguished from [[other]] operations such as [[repression]], [[negation]], and [[projection]]. [[Foreclosure]] differs from [[repression]] in that the [[foreclosed]] [[signifier|element]] is not buried in the [[unconscious]] but expelled from the [[unconscious]]. [[Repression]] is the operation which constitutes [[neurosis]], whereas [[foreclosure]] is the operation which constitutes [[psychosis]].
==See Also==
{{See}}* [[AutismAbsence]] * [[Castration complex]] * [[Parade of the signifierCause]]* [[Defence]]||* [[Delusion]]* [[Dual relation]]* [[Existence]]* [[Negation]] ||* [[DisavowalProjection]] * [[Infantile neurosisRepression]] * [[Law of the fatherSignifier]] * [[Linguistics and psychoanalysisSpeech]] ||* [[NegativeStructure]] * [[NegationSubject]] * [[NeurosisSymbolic]]
* [[Psychosis]]
* [[Psychoses, chronic and delusional]] * [[Psychotic defenses]] * [[Real]] * [[Repudiation]] * [[Splitting]] * [[Topology]]{{Also}}
==References==
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# Freud, Sigmund. (1894a) Obsessions and phobias: Their psychical mechanism and their aetiology. SE, 3, 69-82.# ——. (1911c) Psycho-analytic notes on an autobiographical account of a case of paranoia (dementia paranoides). SE, 12, 1-82.# Lacan, Jacques. (2004). On a question prior to any possible treatment of psychosis.Écrits: A Selection (Bruce Fink, Trans.). New York: W. W. Norton. (Original work published 1955-56) [[Category:Terms]][[Category:Concepts]][[Category:New]]</div>
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