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[[Lacan]] deliberates on the distinction made in his [[Seminar I|first seminar]] between [[discourse]] [[analysis]] and the [[analysis]] of the [[ego]], both in relation to [[psychoanalytical theory]] and [[practice]]. He claims that "[[analysis]] deals with [[resistance]]s." He reviews three works by [[Freud]]: <i>[[Beyond the Pleasure Principle]]</i>, on the [[death instinct]]; <i>[[Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego]]</i>; and <i>[[The Ego and the Id]]</i>. [[Consciousness ]] is [[transparent ]] to itself, whereas the [[I ]] (<i>[[je]]</i>) is not. The [[I ]] is [[outside ]] the field of [[consciousness ]] and its [[certainties ]] (where we [[represent ]] ourselves as [[ego]], where something exists [[exist]]s and is expressed by the [[I]]). But it is not enough to say that "the [[I ]] of the [[unconscious ]] is not the [[ego]]" since we tend to think this [[I ]] as the [[true ]] [[ego]]. [[Lacan ]] proceeds to re-assert the locus of the [[ego ]] and reinstate the [[excentricity ]] of the [[subject ]] vis-à-vis the [[ego]].<br> The [[ego ]] is a particular [[object ]] within the experience of the [[subject]], with a certain function: an [[imaginary ]] one. When in the [[specular image ]] the [[ego ]] is recognized as such by the [[subject]], this [[image ]] becomes [[self-conscious]]. "The [[mirror stage ]] is based on the rapport between, on one hand, a certain level of tendencies which are experienced as disconnected and, on the other, a unity with which it is merged and paired. In this unity the subject knows itself as unity, but as an alienated, virtual one."<br> However, for a consciousness to perceive another consciousness, the symbolic order must intervene on the system determined by the image of the ego, as a dimension of <i>[[re-connaissance]]</i>.<br> In "[[The Dream of Irma's Injection]]" the most [[tragic ]] moment occurs in the confrontation with the [[Real]]. The ultimate [[Real]], "something in front of which words stop." "In the dream the unconscious is what is outside all of the subjects. The structure of the dream shows that the unconscious is not the ego of the dreamer." "This subject outside the subject designates the whole structure of the dream." "What is at stake in the function of the dream is beyond the ego, what in the subject is of the subject and not of the subject, that is the [[unconscious]]."<br> In his analysis of [[Poe]]'s <i>[[Purloined Letter]]</i>, [[Lacan ]] speaks of "an other beyond all subjectivity." The question concerns the "confrontation of the subject beyond the ego with the <i>Id</i>, the <i>quod</i> (what-is-it?) which seeks to come into being in analysis."<br> "The purloined letter is synonymous with the original, radical subject of the unconscious. The symbol is being displaced in its pure state: one cannot come into contact with without being caught in its play. There is nothing in destiny, or casualty, which can be defined as a function of existence. When the characters get hold of this letter, something gets hold of them and carries them along. At each stage of the symbolic transformation of the letter, they will be defined by their position in relation to this radical object. This position is not fixed. As they enter into the necessity peculiar to the letter, they each become functionally different to the essential reality of the letter. For each of them the letter is the unconscious, with all its consequences, namely that at each point of the symbolic circuit, each of them becomes someone else."<br>  When [[Jean Hyppolite ]] asks: "What use does the [[Symbolic ]] have?" [[Lacan ]] answers: "The [[Symbolic]], the [[Imaginary ]] and the [[Real ]] are useful in giving its meaning to a particularly pure [[symbolic ]] experience, that of [[analysis]]." Since the [[symbolic|symbolic dimension ]] is the only dimension that cures[[cure]]s, "The [[symbolic ]] [[order ]] is simultaneously non-being and insisting to be, that is what [[Freud ]] has in mind when he talks about the [[death ]] [[instinct ]] as being what is most fundamental: a [[symbolic order ]] in travail, in the process of coming, insisting in being realisedrealized."<br><br>

The <i>[[Schema L]]</i>, systematized in <i>La lettre volée</i> (Écrits, 1966), is elaborated in this [[seminar]]. A four-term [[structure ]] maps the [[Real]], the [[Imaginary ]] and the [[Symbolic ]] as replacing the second Freudian [[Freud]]ian [[topography]]: [[ego]] /<i>[[id]]</i>/[[superego]]. Two diagonals intersect, while the [[imaginary ]] rapport links <i>[[a]]</i> (the [[ego]]) to <i>[[a']]</i> (the [[other]]), the line going from <i>[[S]]</i> (the [[subject]], the Freudian [[Freud]]ian <i>[[id]]</i>) to <i>[[A]]</i> (the [[Other]]) is interrupted by the first one. The [[Other ]] is difficult to define: it is the place of [[language ]] where [[subjectivity ]] is constituted; it is the place of [[primal ]] [[speech ]] linked to the [[Father]]; it is the place of the absolute [[Other]], the [[mother ]] in the [[demand]]. The [[Other ]] makes the [[subject ]] without him [[knowing ]] it. With [[Lacan ]] in [[Freud]]'s <i>[[Wo Es war, soll Ich werden]]</i>, <i>[[Es]]</i> is the [[subject]]. It [[knows ]] him or doesn't. The further, more exacting insight, is [[It ]] speaks or doesn't. At the [[end of analysis]], it is [[It ]] who must be called on to [[speak]], and to enter in relation with real [[Others]]. Where <i>[[S]]</i> was, there the <i>[[Ich]]</i> should be.