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Need
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* [[desire]].
===Need and Instinct===
In the context of this distinction, "[[need]]" comes close to what [[Freud]] referred to as "[[instinct]]" (''[[Instinkt]]''); that is, a purely ''[[biological]]'' concept opposed to the realm of the [[drive]] (''[[Trieb]]'').
===Need and Demand===
[[Lacan]] bases this distinction on the fact that in order to satisfy his [[needs]] the infant must articulate them in [[language]]; in other words, the infant must articulate his [[needs]] in a "[[demand]]".
However, in doing so, something else is introduced which causes a split between [[need]] and [[demand]]; this is the fact that every [[demand]] is not only an articulation of [[need]] but also an (unconditional) [[demand]] for [[love]].
Now, althought the other to whom the [[demand]] is addressed (in the first instance, the [[mother]]) can and may supply the [[object]] which satisfies the infant's [[need]], she is never in a position to answer the [[demand]] for [[love]] unconditionally, because she too is divided.
The result of this split between [[need]] and [[demand]] is an insatiable leftover, which is [[desire]] itself.
===Need and Desire===
[[Need]] is thus an intermittent tension which arises for purely organic reasons and which is discharged entirely by the specific action corresponding to the particular [[need]] in question.
[[Desire]], on the other hand, is a constand force which can never be satisfied, the constant 'pressure' which underlies the [[drives]].
