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Love
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[[Love]] is located by [[Lacan]] as a purely [[imaginary]] phenomenon, although it has effects in the [[symbolic]] [[order]].<ref>(one of those effects being to produce "a veritable subduction of the symbolic") {{S1}} p. 142</ref> [[Love]] is [[autoeroticism|autoerotic]], and has a fundamentally [[narcissism|narcissistic]] [[structure]] since "it's one's own ego that one loves in love, one's own ego made real on the imaginary level."<ref>{{S1}} p. 142</ref> The [[imaginary]] nature of [[love]] leads [[Lacan]] to oppose all those [[analyst]]s who posit [[love]] as an ideal in [[psychoanalytic treatment]].<ref>{{S7}} p. 8</ref>
[[Love]] involves an [[imaginary]] reciprocity, since "to love is, essentially, to wish to be loved."<ref>{{S11}} p. 253</ref> It is this reciprocity between "loving" and "being loved" that constitutes the illusion of [[love]], and this is what distinguishes it from the [[order]] of the [[drive]]s, in which there is no reciprocity, only pure activity.<ref>{{S11}} p. 200</ref> [[Love]] is an illusory [[fantasy]] of fusion with the beloved which makes up for the [[absence]] of any [[sexual relationship]].<ref>{{S20}} p. 44</ref> This is especially clear in the asexual concept of [[courtly love]].<ref>{{S20}} p. 65</ref>
===Love and Desire===
One of the most complex areas of [[Lacan]]'s [[Jacques Lacan:Bibliography|work]] concerns the relationship between [[love]] and [[desire]]. On the one hand, the two terms are diametrically opposed. On the other hand, this opposition is problematized by certain similarities between the two:
====Opposition: Love and Desire====
As an [[imaginary]] phenomenon which belongs to the [[order|field]] of the [[ego]], [[love]] is clearly opposed to [[desire]], which is inscribed in the [[symbolic]] [[order]], the [[order|field]] of the [[Other]].<ref>{{S11}} pp. 189-91</ref> [[Love]] is a [[metaphor]], whereas [[desire]] is [[metonymy]].<ref>{{S8}} p. 53</ref> It can even be said that [[love]] kills [[desire]], since [[love]] is based on a [[fantasy]] of oneness with the beloved and this abolishes the difference which gives rise to [[desire]].<ref>{{S20}} p. 46</ref>
====Similarity: Love and Desire====
On the other hand, there are elements in [[Lacan]]'s work which destabilize the neat opposition between [[love]] and [[desire]].
