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=====Jacques Lacan=====
[[Lacan]] generally prefers to use the term "[[phallus]]" rather than "[[phallus|penis]]" in order to emphasize the fact that what concerns [[psychoanalytic theory]] is not the [[[[biology|male genital organ]] in its [[biology|biological]] [[reality]] but the role that this organ plays in [[fantasy]].
Hence [[Lacan]] usually reserves the term "[[phallus|penis]]" for the [[biology|biological organ]], and the term "[[phallus]]" for the [[imaginary]] and [[symbolic]] functions of this [[biology|organ]].
It is an [[imaginary]] [[object]] which circulates between the other two elements, the [[mother]] and the [[child]].<ref>{{S3}} p. 319</ref>
The [[mother]] [[desire]]]s this [[object]] and the [[child]] seeks to satisfy her [[desire]] by [[identifying]] with the [[phallus]] or with the [[phallus|phallic mother]].
In the [[Oedipus complex]] the [[father]] intervenes as a fourth term in this [[imaginary]] [[structure|triangle]] by [[castration|castrating]] the [[child]]; that is, he makes it impossible for the [[child]] to [[identify]] with the [[phallus|imaginary phallus]].
=====The Symbolic Phallus=====
The [[phallus|imaginary phallus]] which circulates between [[mother]] and [[child]] serves to institute the first [[dialectic]] in the child's life, which, although it is an [[imaginary]] [[dialectic]], already paves the way towards the [[symbolic]], since an [[imaginary]] element is circulated in much the same way a [[signifier]] (the [[phallus]] becomes an "[[imaginary]] [[signifier]]").
Thus [[Lacan]]'s formulations on the [[phallus|imaginary phallus]] in the [[seminar]] of 1956-7 are accompanied by statements that the [[phallus]] is also a [[symbolic]] [[object]]<ref>{{S4}} p. 152</ref> and that the [[phallus]] is a [[signifier]].<ref>{{S4}} p. 191</ref>
The idea that the [[phallus]] is a [[signifier]] is taken up again and further developed in the 1957-8 [[seminar]] and becomes the principle element of [[Lacan]]'s theory of the [[phallus]] thereafter; the [[phallus]] is described as "the [[signifier]] of the [[desire]] of the [[Other]]",<ref>{{E}} p. 290</ref> and the [[signifier]] of ''[[jouissance]]''.<ref>{{E}} p. 320</ref>
=====See Also=====
{{See}}
* [[Algebra]]
* [[Biology]]
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* [[Castration complex]]
* [[Desire]]
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* [[Development]]
* [[Father]]
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* [[Imaginary]]
* [[Lack]]
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* [[Mother]]
* [[Oedipus complex]]
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* [[Part-object]]
* [[Preoedipal]]
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* [[Sexual difference]]
* [[Symbolic]]
{{Also}}
