Changes
Phobia
,The LinkTitles extension automatically added links to existing pages (<a rel="nofollow" class="external free" href="https://github.com/bovender/LinkTitles">https://github.com/bovender/LinkTitles</a>).
{{Top}}phobie{{Bottom}}
A [[phobia]] is usually defined in [[psychiatry]] as an extreme '''[[fear]]''' of a [[particular]] [[object]] (such as an [[animal]]) or a particular [[situation]] (such as leaving the home).
Those who suffer from a phobia (phobie) A phobia is usually defined [[experience]] [[Anxiety]] if they [[encounter]] the phobic object or are placed in psychiatry the feared situation, and develop 'avoidance strategies' so as an extremeto prevent this from happening.
Lacan points out the ensuing fear extremely diverse ways in which was focused specifically on horsesHans describes the feared horse at different moments of his phobia; only the latterfor example, at one point Hans is afraid that a horse will bite him and at [[another]] [[moment]] that a horse will fall down.<ref>{{S4}} p. 305-6</ref>
The phobia functions by using an [[Imaginary]] object (the difference between phobia horse) to reorganise the [[Symbolic]] [[world]] of Hans and anxiety: anxiety appears firstthus [[help]] him to make the passage from the [[Imaginary]] to the [[Symbolic]] [[order]]<ref>{{S4}} pp. 230, 245-6, and the284</ref>
Far from being a purely [[negative]] phenomenon, then, a phobia makes a [[traumatic]] situation thinkable, livable, by introducing a [[symbolic]] [[dimension]], even if it is only a defensive formation which turns the anxiety into fear by focusingprovisional solution.<ref>{{S4}} p. 82</ref>
The phobic object is thus an [[Imaginary]] element which is able to function as a representative of the father, as Freud does, Lacan argues that the fundamental characteristic of the phobic object is that it does not simply signifier by being used to represent one person but represents different people in turn (S4, 283-8). Lacan points out the extremely diverse ways every possible element in which Hans describes the feared horse at different moments of his phobia; for example, at one point Hans is afraid that a horse will bite him and at another moment that a horse will fall down (S4, 305-6). At each of these different moments, Lacan argues, the horse represents a different person in Hanssubject's life (S4, 307). The horse thus functions not as the equivalent of a sole signified but as a signifier which has no univocal sense and is displaced onto different signifieds in turn (S4, 288)world.
What are the [[practical]] consequences of Lacan's [[theory]] in the [[treatment]] of [[subjects]] who suffer from phobias? Rather than simply desensitising the subject (as in behavioural [[therapy]]), or simply providing an explanation of the phobic object (e.g. 'the horse is your father'), the treatment should aim at helping the subject to [[work]] through all the various permutations involving the phobic signifier.
By helping the subject to develop the individual myth in accordance with its own laws, the treatment enables him finally to exhaust all the possible combinations of signifying elements and thus to dissolve the phobia.<ref>{{S4}} p. 402</ref>
---
(It should be borne in [[mind]] that Lacan's [[discussion]] of the case of Little Hans only explicitly addresses the question of [[childhood]] phobias, and leaves open the question of whether these remarks also apply to [[adult]] phobias.) --- As Freud himself noted in his case study of Little Hans, phobias had not previously been assigned any definite position in [[psychiatric]] nosographies. He attempted to remedy this uncertainty surrounding the classification of phobia, but his proposed solution is prey to a certain ambiguity. On the one hand, since phobic [[symptoms]] can be found among both [[neurotic]] and [[psychotic]] subjects, Freud argued that phobias could not be regarded as an 'independent pathological process'.<ref>Freud, 1909b: SE X, l15</ref> On the other hand, in the same work Freud did isolate a particular [[form]] of [[neurosis]] whose central [[symptom]] is a phobia. Freud called this new diagnostic [[category]] 'anxiety [[hysteria]]' in order to distinguish it from 'conversion hysteria' (which Freud had previously referred to simply as 'hysteria'). Freud's remarks are thus ambiguous, implying that phobia can be both a symptom and an underlying [[clinical]] entity. The same ambiguity is repeated in Lacan's works, where the question is rephrased in [[terms]] of whether phobia is a symptom or a [[structure]]. Usually, Lacan distinguishes only two neurotic [[structures]] (hysteria and [[obsessional]] neurosis), and describes phobia as a symptom rather than a structure.<ref>{{S4}} p. 285</ref> However, there are also points in Lacan's work where he lists phobia as a [[third]] form of neurosis in addition to hysteria and [[obsessional neurosis]], thus implying that there is a phobic structure;<ref>{{E}} p. 321</ref>; in 1961, for example, he describes phobia as "the most radical form of neurosis."<ref>{{S8}} p. 425</ref> The question is not resolved until the seminar of [[1968]]-9, where Lacan states that One cannot see in it [phobia] a clinical entity but rather a revolving junction [plaque tournante], something that must be elucidated in its relations withthat towards which it usually tends, namely the two great [[orders]] of neurosis, hysteria and obsessionality, and also the junction which it realises with [[perversion]].<ref>{{JL}} 1968-9</ref> --- Thus phobia is not, according to Lacan, a [[clinical structure]] on the same level as hysteria and obsessional neurosis, but a gateway which can lead to either of [[them]] and which also has certain connections with the [[perverse]] structure. The link with perversion can be seen in the similarities between the [[fetish]] and the phobic object, both of which are [[symbolic]] substitutes for a [[missing]] element and both of which serve to structure the surrounding world. Furthermore, both phobia and perversion arise from difficulties in the passage from the [[imaginary]] preoedipal triangle to the [[symbolic]] [[Oedipal]] [[quaternary]]. == References ==<div style="font-size:11px" class="references-small">
<references/>
</div>