Ego-Ideal (Freud): Ego-[[Ideal ]] and "ideal ego"([[Lacan]]): Lacan makes a [[distinction ]] between the "ideal ego" and the "[[ego ideal]]," the former of which he associates with the [[imaginary ]] [[order]], the latter of which he associates with the [[symbolic ]] order. Lacan's "ideal ego" is the ideal of perfection that the ego strives to emulate; it first affected the [[subject ]] when he saw himself in a [[mirror ]] during the mirror [[stage]], which occurs around 6-18 months of age (see the Lacan module on [[psychosexual ]] [[development]]). [[Seeing ]] that [[image ]] of oneself established a discord between the idealizing image in the mirror (bounded, [[whole]], [[complete]]) and the chaotic [[reality ]] of the one's [[body ]] between 6-18 months, thus setting up the [[logic ]] of [[the imaginary]]'s [[fantasy ]] [[construction ]] that would dominate the subject's [[psychic ]] [[life ]] ever after. For Lacan, the "[[ego-ideal]]," by contrast, is when the subject looks at himself as if from that ideal point; to look at oneself from that point of perfection is to see one's life as vain and useless. The effect, then, is to [[invert ]] one's "normal" life, to see it as suddenly repulsive.
