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Real
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In [[Lacanian psychoanalysis]], one of the three orders that structure human existence, the others being the [[iamginary]] and the [[symbolic]].
Lacan's references to the [[real]] tend to be allusive.
The [[real]] is not simply synonymous with [[external reality]], nor is it simply the antonym of 'imaginary'.
It exists ouside or beyond the [[symbolic]], is menacingly homogeneous, and is not composed of distinct and differential [[signifier]]s.
The [[real]] is described as tht which resists [[symbolization]] and [[signification]], and is usually encountered in the context of [[trauma]] and [[psychosis]].
If, for instance, the [[name-of-the-father]] cannot be itnegrated into the [[subject]]'s [[symbolic]] world, the mechanism of [[foreclosure]] will ensure that it is expelled into the [[real]] and not repressed into the [[unconscious]], thus triggering a [[psychosis]].
The foreclosed [[signifier]] will then return in the [[real]] in the form of a persecutory [[image]] that cannot be [[mastery|mastered]] through verbal [[symbolization]].
==Dictionary==
The real, a category established by Jacques Lacan, can only be understood in connection with the categories of the symbolic and the imaginary. Defined as what escapes the symbolic, the real can be neither spoken nor written. Thus it is related to the impossible, defined as "that which never ceases to write itself." And because it cannot be reduced to meaning, the real does not lend itself any more readily to univocal imaginary representation than it does to symbolization. The real situates the symbolic and the imaginary in their respective positions.
