Changes

The term "[[lack]]" is always related, in [[Lacan]]'s teaching, to [[desire]].  It is a [[lack]] which causes [[desire]] to arise.<ref>{{S8}} p.139</ref>  However, the precise [[nature ]] of what is [[lack]]ing varies over the course of [[Lacan]]'s [[Works of Jacques Lacan|work]]. 

When the term first appears, in 1955, [[lack]] designates first and foremost a [[lack|lack of being]]. What is [[desire]]d is [[being]] itself. <blockquote>Desire is a relation of being to lack. The lack is the lack of being properly [[speaking]]. It isn't the lack of this or that, but lack of being whereby the being [[exists]]."<ref>{{S2}} p.223</ref></blockquote> [[Lacan]] returns to this theme in 1958, when he argues that [[desire]] is the [[metonymy]] of the [[lack|lack of being]] (''[[lack|manque à être]]'').<ref>{{E}} p.259; translated by Sheridan as "want-to-be"</ref> The [[subject]]'s [[lack|lack of being]] is "the heart of the analytic experience" and "the very field in which the neurotic's passion is deployed.<ref>{{E}} p.251</ref> [[Lacan]] contrasts the [[lack|lack of being]], which relates to [[desire]], with the [[lack|lack of having]] (''[[lack|manque à avoir]]''), which relates to [[demand]].<ref>{{Ec}} p.730</ref>

 In 1956, [[lack]] comes to designate the [[lack]] of an [[object]].  [[Lacan]] distinguishes between [[three ]] kinds of [[lack]], according to the nature of the [[object]] which is [[lack]]ing, as shown in the [[figure ]] below.<ref>{{S4}} p.269</ref> <!-- In the [[child]] as in the [[adult]], the lack of the object can appear in three specific modes: frustration, privation, and castration. In each of these three cases there is lack of the object, but in each [[case]] the nature of the lack is qualitatively different. The same is [[true]] of the type of object in question. -->

In 1957, when [[Lacan]] introduces the [[algebraic]] [[symbol]] for the [[bar]]red [[Other]] (<strike>A</strike>), [[lack]] comes to designate the [[lack]] of a [[signifier]] in the [[Other]].  [[Lacan]] introduces the [[symbol]] '''S(<strike>A</strike>)''' to designate "the signifier of a lack in the Other."  No matter how many [[signifier]]s one adds to the [[signifying chain]], the [[chain]] is always [[lack|incomplete]]; it always [[lack]]s the [[signifier]] that could complete it.  This "[[lack|missing signifier]]" (written '''-1''' in [[Lacan]]ian [[algebra]]) is constitutive of the [[subject]].