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In <i>[[Le transfert]]</i> [[Lacan]] describes [[symbolic]] [[identification]] as [[identification]] with the [[signifier]]. Here, he examines the rapport of the [[subject]] to the [[signifier]]. In the [[three ]] types of [[identification]] isolated by [[Freud]] in <i>[[Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego]]</i> (1921, S.E. XVIII), he finds:

# A [[primitive]] [[identification]] with the [[father]] as such based on a single feature: the [[matrix ]] of the [[Ideal]]-of-the-Ego, a symbolic [[introjection]] of the [[father]]'s mark, "An [[identity ]] of body [[links ]] the [[Father]] of all [[times ]] to all those who descend from Him."# A [[regressive]] [[identification]] in [[love]] relations: the [[object]] refuses itself, therefore the [[subject]] [[identifies ]] with the [[object]] (one centered around <i>[[objet a]]</i> and the [[phallus]]).# An [[hysteric]]al [[identification]] where the [[subject]] recognizes in the [[other ]] his [[global ]] [[situation]].

By asserting the [[identification]] of the [[signifier]] and the [[identification]] with the [[signifier]], [[Lacan]] brings [[about ]] a new [[category ]] consisting in the first two and centered on the rapport to the [[Father]] and to the [[phallus]]. It becomes crucial to institute the [[subject]] in his rapport to the [[signifier]] - to the [[signifier]] alone. To mark the [[difference ]] between the preverbal and the [[verbal ]] [[Lacan]] points at his dog, Justine, who has [[speech ]] but not language: insofar as she speaks, she never takes him for an other, she is not capable of [[transference]] and lives in the [[demand]]. In "[[The agency of the letter in the unconscious or reason since Freud]]" (<i>[[Écrits: A Selection]]</i>) he refers to the [[language]] of the [[affect]] and of the [[body]] as the "nonhuman" aspect of those who "do not have [[language]]." The only salvation lies in "the signifying identification" where the preverbal is articulated within the subject's relation to the [[word]].

In "[[The agency of the letter]]..." the [[signifier]] is turned into an inscription in the [[unconscious]], a seal, which in <i>[[L'identification]]</i> becomes the "unbroken line," <i>[[trait unaire]]</i>, a [[symbolic]] term which is to produce the [[ego-ideal]]. Though this [[trait ]] may originate as a [[sign]], it becomes a [[signifier]] when incorporated into a signifying [[system]]: [[identification]] raises the question of the identical. Can it be said that A = A? No, for there already is a difference due to repetition: hence A [[Image:lacansem1b2.gif]] A. Against the One of [[totality]], [[Lacan]] institutes the 1 as the single mark, the unbroken line, made by mere repetition. The [[signifier]] has a [[unity ]] only insofar as it is that which all the other ones are not, insofar as it is pure difference: the One as such is the Other. There is no tautology in expressions such as "war is war" or "Lacan is Lacan." The [[real ]] [[thing ]] has [[nothing ]] to do with this, it is the same [[signifier]] that functions to connote pure difference, for, in [[repetition]], the [[signifier]] represents the [[subject]] for [[another ]] [[signifier]] and not for some one. The [[identification]] of the [[signifier]] and the [[identification]] with the signfier closely mingle. [[Formal ]] [[logic]], the study of the proper [[name]], the [[complex ]] grammar of [[negation]]... everything works toward defining the unbroken line as "a [[return]], the seizing of the origin of a counting before the [[number]]." The [[phallus]] as the [[symbolic]] mark is at the origin since "[[narcissism and incorporation should be located in the direction of the [[Father]] and not in the direction of the parasited [[mother]]'s [[body]]." [[Lacan]]'s response to the problem of the origin (the chicken or the egg?) is the rooster, the [[signifier]] that makes the rooster, the [[letter ]] or unbroken line. His [[project ]] is to create "a [[topology|topological]] [[structure]] of the [[subject]]."

To whomever asks, "What is the [[truth]] of your [[discourse]]?", [[Lacan]] answers: "I am an [[analyst]], and as such, I have to to disappoint you, I don't tell the [[truth]] about [[truth]]." "I can take you very far on the path of the 'who am I' without the [[truth]] of what I am telling you [[being ]] guaranteed, but nevertheless, in what I am telling you, it is still a matter of [[truth]]."

[[French]]: unpublished.<br>[[English]]: unpublished

|width="100%"| [[Jacques Lacan|Lacan, Jacques]]. [[Seminar I|Le séminaire, Livre II: Le moi dans la théorie de Freud et dans la technique de la psychanalyse]]. Ed. [[Jacques-Alain Miller]]. [[Paris]]: Seuil, 1977. 374 pages, Language: French, ISBN: 2020047276. <small><small>Buy it at [http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/2020047276/nosubject-20/ Amazon.com], [http://www.amazon.ca/exec/obidos/ASIN/2020047276/nosub07-20/ Amazon.ca], [http://www.amazon.de/exec/obidos/ASIN/2020047276/nosub-21/ Amazon.de], [http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/2020047276/nosubjencyofl-21/ Amazon.co.uk] or [http://www.amazon.fr/exec/obidos/ASIN/2020047276/nosub04-21/ Amazon.fr].</small></small>

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