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| − | part-object (objet partiel) According to Melanie Klein, the infant's
| + | #redirect [[partial object]] |
| − | | + | [[Category:Dictionary]] |
| − | underdeveloped capacity for perception, together with the fact that he is only
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| − | concerned with his immediate gratifications, means that the subject begins by
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| − | relating only to a part of a person rather than the whole. The primordial part-
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| − | object is, according to Klein, the mother's breast. As the child's visual
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| − | apparatus develops, so also does his capacity to perceive people as whole
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| − | objects rather than collections of separate parts (see Hinshelwood, 1989: 378-
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| − | 80).
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| − | While the term 'part-object' was first introduced by the Kleinian school of
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| − | psychoanalysis, the origins of the concept can be traced back to Karl Abra-
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| − | ham's work and ultimately to Freud. For example, when Freud states that
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| − | partial drives are directed towards objects such as the breast or faeces, these | |
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| − | are clearly part-objects. Freud also implies that the penis is a part-object in his
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| − | discussion of the CASTRATION COMPLEX (in which the penis is imagined as a
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| − | separable organ) and in his discussion of fetishism (see Laplanche and
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| − | Pontalis, 1967: 301).
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| − | The concept of the part-object plays an important part in Lacan's work from
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| − | early on. Lacan finds the concept of the part-object particularly useful in his
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| − | criticism of object-relations theory, which he attacks for attributing a false
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| − | sense of completeness to the object. In opposition to this tendency, Lacan
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| − | argues that just as all DRIVEs are partial drives, so all objects are necessarily
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| − | partial objects.
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| − | Lacan's focus on the part-object is clear evidence of the important Kleinian
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| − | influences in his work. However, whereas Klein defines these objects as partial
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| − | because they are only part of a whole object, Lacan takes a different view.
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| − | They are partial, he argues, 'not because these objects are part of a total object,
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| − | the body, but because they represent only partially the function that produces -
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| − | them' (E, 315). In other words, in the unconscious only the pleasure-giving -
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| − | function of these objects is represented, while their biological function is not
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| − | represented. Furthermore, Lacan argues that what isolates certain parts of the
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| − | body as a part-object is not any biological given but the signifying system of
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| − | language.
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| − | In addition to the partial objects already discovered by psychoanalytic
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| − | theory before Lacan (the breast, the faeces, the PHALLUS BS imaginary object,
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| − | and the urinary flow), Lacan adds (in 1960) several more: the phoneme, the
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| − | GAZE, the voice and the nothing (E, 315). Thesgobjects all have one feature in
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| − | common: 'they have no specular image' (E, 315). In other words, they are
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| − | precisely that which cannot be assimilated into the subject's narcissistic
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| − | illusion of completeness.
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| − | Lacan's conceptualisation of the part-object is modified with the develop-
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| − | ment around 1963-4 of the concept of OBJETPETITA as the cause of desire. Now
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| − | each partial object becomes an object by virtue of the fact that the subject takes
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| − | it for the object of desire, objet petit a (Sll, 104 From this point on in his
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| − | work, Lacan usually restricts his discussion of part-objects to only four: the
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| − | voice, the gaze, the breast and faeces.
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| − | A Kleinian term that "has never been subjected to criticism since [[Karl Abraham]] introduced it."<ref>1977. p. 283/687</ref>
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| − | ==References==
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| − | <references/>
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| − | ==See Also==
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| − | * [[Karl Abraham]]
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| − | [[Category:Terms]]
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| − | [[Category:Concepts]]
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| − | [[Category:Psychoanalysis]] | |
