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fragmented body ([[French]]:''corps morcelé'')
The notion of the [[fragmented body]] is one of the earliest original concepts to appear in [[Lacan]]'s work, and is closely linked to the concept of the [[mirror stage]].
The [[anxiety]] provoked by this feeling of [[fragmentation]] fuels the [[identification]] with the [[specular image]] by which the [[ego]] is [[formation|formed]]. However, the anticipation of a [[synthesis|synthetic]] [[ego]] is henceforth constantly threatened by the [[memory]] of this sense of [[fragmentation]], which manifests itself in "images of castration, emasculation, mutilation, dismemberment, dislocation, evisceration, devouring, bursting open of the body" which haunt the human imagination.<ref>{{E}}p.11</ref> These [[image]]s typically appear in the [[analysand]]'s [[dream]]s and associations at a particular phase in the [[treatment]] - namely, the moment when the [[analysand]]'s [[aggressivity]] emerges in the negative [[transference]]. This moment is an important early sign that the [[treatment]] is progressing in the right direction, i.e. towards the disintegration of the rigid unity of the [[ego]].<ref>Lacan, 1951b: 13</ref> In a more general sense, the [[fragmented body]] refers not only to [[image]]s of the physical [[body]] but also to any sense of [[fragmentation]] and disunity: <blockquote>"He [the subject] is originally an inchoate collection of desires - there you have the true sense of the expression fragmented body."<ref>S3, 39</ref></blockquote> Any such sense of disunity threatens the [[illusion]] of [[synthesis]] which constitutes the [[ego]]. [[Lacan]] also uses the idea of the [[fragmented body]] to explain certain typical [[symptom]]s of [[hysteria]]. When a [[hysteria|hysterical]] [[paralysis]] affects a limb, it does not respect the physiological structure of the nervous system, but instead reflects the way the [[body]] is divided up by an 'imaginary anatomy'. In this way, the [[fragmented body]] is "revealed at the organic level, in the lines of fragilization that define the anatomy of phantasy, as exhibited in the schizoid and spasmodic symptoms of hysteria."<ref>E, 5</ref> ==See Also==* [[mirror stage]]* [[body]]* [[lack]]* [[fragmentation]]* [[anxiety]]* [[specular image]]* [[ego]]* [[aggressivity]]* [[illusion]]* [[imaginary]]* [[transference]] ==References==<references/> {{Ec}}[[Category:Imaginary]]
