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(The [[Rat Man]]'s ''raten'' does not point to the meaning "instalments" but to other linguistic elements like ''heiraten'' and ''Spielratte'', even though he might not have been aware of these links at all. The group of meanings is organized by the links between the words. There is thus ''a priority of the signifier'', of the material, verbal element in psychic life.)
=====EditThe Symbolic=====From the start of the 1950s, Lacan stressed more and more in his work the power and organizing principle of the [[symbolic]], understood as the networks, social, cultural, linguistic, into which a [[child]] is [[born]]. These preced the birth of a child, which is why Lacan can say that ''language is there from before the actual moment of birth''. It is there in the social structures which are at play in the [[family]] and, of course, in the ideals, goals and histories of the parents. Even before a [[child]] is [[born]], the parents have talked about him or her, chosen a name, mapped out his or her future. This world of language can hardly be grasped by the newborn and yet ''it will act on the whole of the child's existence''.
This idea has obvious conseuqneces for the theory of the mirror phase. If Lacan had first stressed the ''imaginary'' identification, he now discussed its ''symbolic'' side. If the child is captured in an image, he or she will still assume [[signifier]]s from the speech of the parents as elements of identification. (As a [[mother]] raises the baby to see its reflection, she might say, "you've got grandma's eyes" or "you look just like your father." These are symbolic pronouncements since they situated the child in a lineage, in a symbolic universe.) ''The baby is bound to its image by words and names'', by linguistic representations. A mother who keeps telling her son "What a bad boy you are!" may end up with either a villain or a saint. ''The identity of the child will depend on how he or she assumes the words of the parents''.
=====The Ideal=====
There is thus an identification which is beyond and in a sense prior to the identification with the image: a ''symbolic identification with a signifying element''. (If narcissism is about one's relation to one's image, this shows how narcissism is not only imagianry but includes a symbolic dimension as well.) Lacan calls this an ''identification with the Ideal'', a term which is not intended to suggest anything perfect or literally "ideal". This ideal is not [[conscious]]. The child does not suddently decide to put himself or herself in the shoes of some ancestor or family member. Rather, the speech which he or she hears as a child will be incorporated, forming a kernal of insignia which are [[unconscious]]. Their [[existence]] may be deduced from clinical material. [[Analysis]] reveals the central identifications, how ''the subject has 'become' what a parent prophesied'' or how he or she has repeated the mistakes of a grandparent. (The symbolic operates beyond the conscious control or understanding of the plays involved.)
The key to the theory of identification here is that symbolic identification with an ''ideal element'' removes the subject from being completely at the mercy of the imaginary images which captivate him or her. They come from another register, the symbolic, and thus serve to ground the subject, to give him a base, in this [[structure]]. (To take on a place in the symbolic world means leaving the world of the image.)
The narcissistic imaginary register which Lacan had elaborated in such detail in his early work is now shown to rest on a symbolic foundation: ''the relation to the image will be structured by language''. (My relation with myself is constructed "from the outside." I learn who I am because others tell me.) Images are caught up in a complex symbolic web which manoeuvres them, combines them and organizes their relations.
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