Language
Contents
Lacanian Psychoanalysis
The Primary Importance of Language in Psychoanalytic Treament
It is the emphasis placed by Lacanian psychoanalysis that is usually regarded as its most distinctive feature.
Lacan criticizes the way that other forms of psychoanalysis, such as Kleinian psychoanalysis and object-relations theory, tend to play down the importance of language and emphasize the "non-verbal communication" of the analysand (his "body language," etc.) at the expense of the analysand's speech).
This is a fundamental error, according to Lacan, for three main reasons.
- 1. Firstly, all human communication is inscribed in a linguistic structure; even "body language," is, as the term implies, fundamentally a form of language, with the same structural features.
- 2. Secondly, the whole aim of psychoanalytic treatment is to articulate the truth of one's desire in speech rather than in any other medium; the fundamental rule of psychoanalysis is based on the principle that speech is the only way to this truth.
- 3. And thirdly, speech is the only tool which the analyst has; therefore, any analyst who does not understand the way speech and language work does not understand psychoanalysis itself.[1]
One consequence of Lacan's emphasis on language is his recommendation that the analyst must attend to the formal features of the analysand's speech (the signifiers), and not be sidetracked into an empathic attitude baseed on an imaginary understanding of the content (the signified).
Symbolic and Imaginary Dimensions
One common misconception of Lacan is that language is synonymous with the symbolic order.
This is, however, not correct; Lacan argues that language has both a symbolic and an imaginary dimension.
"There is something in the symbolic function of human discourse that cannot be eliminated, and that is the role played in it by the imaginary."[2]
The symbolic dimension of language is that of the signifier and true speech.
The imaginary dimension of language is that of the signified, signification, and empty speech.
Schema L represents these two dimensions of language by means of two axes which intersect.
The axis A-S is language in its symbolic dimension, the discourse of the Other, the unconscious.
The imaginary axis a'-a is language in its imaginary dimension, the wall of language which interrupts, distorts and inverts the discourse of the Other.
In Lacan's words, "language is as much there to be found in the Other as to drastically prevent us from understanding him.[3]
Languages and Codes
Lacan distinguishes between languages and codes; unlike codes, in language there is no stable one-to-one correspondence between sign and referent, nor between signified and signifier.
It is this property of language which gives rise to the inherent ambiguity of all discourse, which can only be interpreted by playing on the homophony and other forms of equivocation (l'équivoque).
References
- ↑ Lacan, Jacques. Écrits: A Selection. Trans. Alan Sheridan. London: Tavistock Publications, 1977. p.40
- ↑ Lacan, Jacques. The Seminar. Book II. The Ego in Freud's Theory and in the Technique of Psychoanalysis, 1954-55. Trans. Sylvana Tomaselli. New York: Nortion; Cambridge: Cambridge Unviersity Press, 1988. p.306
- ↑ Lacan, Jacques. The Seminar. Book II. The Ego in Freud's Theory and in the Technique of Psychoanalysis, 1954-55. Trans. Sylvana Tomaselli. New York: Nortion; Cambridge: Cambridge Unviersity Press, 1988. p.244
