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==Human Infant===Dependency=====The term "[[helplessness]]" is used in [[psychoanalysis]] to denote the state of the newborn [[development|infant]] who is incapable of carrying out the specific [[actionact]]s ions required to [[desire|satisfy]] its own [[need]]s, and so is completely ''dependent '' on other people (especially the [[mother]]).

=====Prematurity of Birth=====The [[helplessness]] of the [[development|human]] [[infant]] is grounded in its "'''prematurity'''" of birth, a fact which was pointed out by [[Freud]] and which [[Lacan]] takes up in his [[Jacques Lacan:Bibliography|early writings]].

Compared to other [[nature|animal]]s such as apes, the [[development|human]] [[infant]] is relatively unformed when it is born, especially with respect to ''motor coordination''.

This means that it is more ''dependent '' than other [[nature|animal]]s, and for a longer time, on its parents.

[[Lacan]] follows [[Freud]] in highlighting the importance of the initial ''dependence '' of the [[development|human]] [[infant]] on the '''[[mother]]'''.

The [[mother]] [[interpretation|interpret]]s the [[infant]]'s cries as hunger, tiredness, loneliness, etc. and [[punctuation|retroactively ]] determines their [[signification|meaning]] (see [[punctuation]]).

The [[development|child]]'s [[helplessness]] contrasts with the omnipotence of the [[mother]], who can decide whether or not to [[desire|satisfy]] the [[development|child]]'s [[need]]s.<ref>{{S4}} p. 69, 185</ref>

==Psychoanalytic Treatment===End of Analysis=====[[Lacan]] also uses the concept of [[helplessness]] to illustrate the sense of '''abandonment ''' and '''[[subjective destitution]] ''' that the [[analysand]] feels at the '''[[end of analysis]]'''.

The '''[[end of analysis]] ''' is not conceived of by [[Lacan]] as the realization of some blissful plenitude, but quite the contrary, as a moment when the [[subject]] comes to terms with his utter solitude.

However, whereas the [[development|infant]] can rely on its [[mother]]'s [[helplessness|help]], the [[analysand]] at the '''[[end of analysis]] ''' "can expect [[help]] from no one."<ref>{{S7}} p. 304</ref>

If this seems to present a particularly ascetic view of [[treatment|psychoanalytic treatment]], this is exactly how [[Lacan]] wishes it to be seen; [[psychoanalysis]] is, in [[Lacan]]'s words, a "long subjective acesis."<ref>{{E}} p. 105</ref>

=====See Also=====

=====References=====