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[[Lacan]] states that in <i>Inhibitions, [[Symptoms ]] and Anxiety</i> (1926, S.E. XX) [[Freud]] speaks of everything but [[anxiety]] just "to leave the emptiness in which there is anxiety." This [[affect]], related to the [[structure]] of the [[subject]], is not [[repressed]] but adrift; only the [[signifier]]s that anchor it are [[repressed]]. For [[Lacan]] [[anxiety]], <i>[[angoisse]]</i>, is not without an [[object]], but this [[object]] is unknown. Since [[anxiety]] is linked to [[desire]], and [[fantasy]] is the support of [[desire]], the starting point is the <i>[[fantasme]]</i> elaborated in the [[Graph of Desire]] in <i>[[Les formations de l'inconscient]]</i>: [[Image:lacansem1b1.gif|12px]]&lt;&gt;<i>a</i> ([[Subject]] [[bar]]red by the [[signifier]]/relation to/<i>[[objet a]]</i>, which is the [[object of desire]], the [[imaginary]] [[part-object]], an element imagined as separable from the rest of the [[body]]). He then proceeds to define <i>[[objet a]]</i> which relates [[anxiety]] with [[desire]].

<i>[[Objet a]]</i> is the [[cause ]] of [[desire]], not its aim. On one hand, it is "the residue of [[division ]] when the subject is marked by the 'unbroken line' of the signifier in the field of the Other." <i>[[Objet a]]</i> is different from the <i>a</i> of the [[mirror ]] [[stage]], it is not [[specular]]; neither is it "[[visible ]] in what continues for the [[subject]] the [[image]] of his [[desire]]." It is what is lost during the original [[constitution ]] of the [[subject]] where the [[Father]] is primary. If we consider the [[body]], <i>[[objet a]]</i> is not created by the [[separation]] from the [[mother]], but from the [[separation]] from the [[body]] proper. <i>[[Objet a]]</i> is the placenta, <i>l'hommelette</i>, and even the [[breast ]] tied to the [[subject]] and detached from the [[mother]]. They are all [[objects ]] of [[desire]] for us, and there is no [[anxiety]] for the [[woman]]. In a [[system ]] centered on the [[signifier]], <i>[[objet a]]</i> seems to be the irreducible [[Real]], "a lack which the symbol does not fill in," a "real [[deprivation]]."

On the other hand, [[anxiety]] arises when [[lack]] comes to be [[lacking]]. It is not [[nostalgia ]] for the [[material ]] breast, but the [[threat ]] of its imminence. [[Lacan]] uses Jone's [[analysis ]] of the [[nightmare]], "this [[being]], the incubus, who weighs on our chest with his opaque weight of foreign <i>jouissance</i>," "who crushes the subject under his <i>jouissance</i>," and who is "a questioner." [[Anxiety]], like [[desire, ]] is linked to the Other, to the <i>[[jouissance]]</i> and to the [[demand]] of the [[Other]]. [[Lacan]] [[links ]] it to the terrible commandment of the [[Father]]-[[God]]: "<i>Jouis!</i>" For [[instance]], what or whose apparition does for the sudden gap of an opening window (<i>The [[Wolf Man]]</i>)? An [[uncanny]] strangeness or familiarity, it is the [[horror ]] of the [[Thing]] against which only desire and law combined are able to protect us. This takes [[place ]] when the [[subject]] loses the support of the [[lack]] that allows him to constitute himself: - F (the [[phallus]] as [[symbol]] of [[lack]]). It is difficult to situate - F and <i>[[objet a]]</i> in their mutual rapport. The [[phallus]] is sometimes the <i>[[agalma]]</i>, and sometimes an operating [[libidinal ]] reserve that saves the subject from the [[fascination ]] of the [[part object]]. Hence, the importance granted to [[symbolic]] [[castration]] in front of "the father's opaque and ungraspable desire," a [[castration]] at the origin of the [[law]].

[[Anxiety]], then, is an [[affect]], not an [[emotion]]; the only affect which is beyond all [[doubt ]] and which is not deceptive. Whereas Freud distinguishes between [[fear]] (focused on a specific object) and anxiety (which is not), [[Lacan]] posits [[anxiety]] as not without an object: it simply involves a different kind of [[object]], one that cannot be [[symbol]]ized as other objects are. This object is <i>[[objet a]]</i>, the object-cause-of-desire, and [[anxiety]] arises when something fills the place of it, when the [[subject]] is confronted by the [[desire]] of the [[Other]] and does not [[know ]] what object he is for that [[desire]]. Also [[Lacan]] links [[anxiety]] to [[lack]]. All [[desire]] springs from [[lack]], and [[anxiety]] appears when this [[lack]] is in itself lacking: "anxiety is the lack of a lack." [[Anxiety]] is not the [[absence]] of the breast, it is rather the possibility of its [[absence]] which saves the [[subject]] from [[anxiety]]. [[Acting out]] and [[passage to the act]] are last [[defense]]s against [[anxiety]].

And what happens in the [[cure]]? How can the [[analyst]] measure how much [[anxiety]] a [[patient]] can bear? How may the [[analyst]] deal with his own [[anxiety]]? The [[desire of the analyst]] is here involved and he has to institute, along with [[anxiety]], the - F, an emptiness whose function is [[structural]].

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

|width="100%"| [[Jacques Lacan|Lacan, Jacques]]. [[Seminar I|The Seminar of Jacques Lacan: Book II : The Ego in Freud's Theory and in the Technique of Psychoanalysis 1954-1955 (Seminar of Jacques Lacan)]]. Ed. [[Jacques-Alain Miller]]. Trans. [[Sylvana Tomaselli]]. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1991. Paperback, [[Language]]: English, ISBN: 0393307093. <small><small>Buy it at [http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0393307093/nosubject-20/ Amazon.com], [http://www.amazon.ca/exec/obidos/ASIN/0393307093/nosub07-20/ Amazon.ca], [http://www.amazon.de/exec/obidos/ASIN/0393307093/nosub-21/ Amazon.de], [http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0393307093/nosubjencyofl-21/ Amazon.co.uk] or [http://www.amazon.fr/exec/obidos/ASIN/0393307093/nosub04-21/ Amazon.fr].</small></small>

|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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