Changes

The [[French]] term ''[[point de capiton]]'' is variously translated in [[English]] editions of [[Lacan]]'s work as "[[quilting point]]" or "[[anchoring point]]."   To avoid the confusion resulting from this variety of translation, the term has here been left in the original [[French]].

It literally designates an [[upholstery button]], the analogy being that just as [[upholstery button]]s are places where "the mattress-maker's needle has worked hard to prevent a shapeless mass of stuffing from moving too freely about.<ref>Bowie, Malcolm. (1991) ''Lacan'', London: Fontana. p.74</ref>," so the ''[[points de capiton]]'' are points at which the "signified and signifier are knotted together."<ref>{{S3}} p.268</ref>

[[Lacan]] introduces the term in his 1955-6 [[seminar]] on [[the psychoses]] to account for the fact that despite the continual [[slip]]page of the [[signified]] under the [[signifier]], there are nevertheless in the normal ([[neurotic]]) [[subject]] certain fundamental "attachment points" between the [[signified]] and the [[signifier]] where this [[slip]]page is temporarily halted.   A certain minimum number of these points are "necessary for a person to be called normal," and "when they are not established, or when they give way'" the result is [[psychosis]].<ref>{{S3}} ppp.268-9</ref> This helps to explain how it is that in the [[psychotic]] experience, "the signifier and the signified present themselves in a completely divided form."<ref>{{S3}} p.268</ref>.

The ''[[point de capiton]]'' is thus the point in the [[signifying chain]] at which "the signifier stops the otherwise endless movement of the signification" and produces the necessary [[illusion]] of a fixed [[meaning]].<ref>{{E}} p.303</ref>

The [[diachronic]] dimension of the ''[[point de capiton]]'' lies in the fact that [[communication]] is always a [[retroactive]] effect of [[punctuation]].   It is only when the sentence is completed that the sense of the first words is determined [[retroactively]].   This function is illustrated in the [[graph of desire|elementary cell]] of the [[graph of desire]], in which the ''[[point de capiton]]'' is the leftmost point of intersection between the vector '''S - S'''' and the vector [[Image:ASRIGHT.jpg|20px]].