Changes

As we saw above, the child slowly comes to realise that it is not identical to, or the sole object of, the mother's desire, as her desire is directed elsewhere. He/she will therefore attempt to once again become the object of her desire and return to the initial state of blissful union. The simple dyadic relationship between the mother and child is thus turned into a triangular relationship between the child, the mother and the object of her desire. The child attempts to seduce the mother by becoming that object of desire. Lacan calls this third term the imaginary phallus. The imaginary phallus is what the child assumes someone must have in order for them to be the object of the mother's desire and, as her desire is usually directed towards the father, it is assumed that he possesses the phallus. Through trying to satisfy the mother's desire, the child identifies with the object that it presumes she has lost and attempts to become that object for her. The phallus is imaginary in the sense that it is associated in the child's mind with an actual object that has been lost and can be recovered. The Oedipus complex, for Lacan, involves the process of giving up the identification with this imaginary phallus, and recognizing that it is a signifier and as such was never there in the first place. What Freud called castration, therefore, is a symbolic process that involves the infant's recognition of themselves as 'lacking' something - the phallus. For Lacan, castration involves the process whereby boys accept that they can symbolically 'have' the phallus only by accepting that they can never actually have it 'in reality' and girls can accept 'not-having' the phallus once they give up on their 'phallic' identification with their mothers (we will discuss this very complicated idea in more detail in the chapter on sexual difference). This is the function of the Oedipus complex in Lacan.

==The Symbolic Phallus==