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Structure

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=====Early Work=====
=====Social Structure=====
In his [[Jacques Lacan:Bibliography|early work]], [[Lacan]] uses the term "[[structure]]" to refer to "[[structure|social structures]]" by which he means a specific set of [[affect]]ive relations between [[family ]] members.
=====Family Complexes=====
The [[child]] perceives these relations much more profoundly than the [[adult]], and [[introjection|internalizes]] [[them ]] in the [[complex]].<ref>{{Ec}} p.89</ref>.
=====Nature of the Psyche=====
=====Inter- and Intra- subjectivity=====
From this point on, the term "[[structure]]" retains this [[sense ]] of something both '''[[intersubjectivity|intersubjective]]''' and '''[[intersubjectivity|intrasubjective]]''', the '''[[internal ]] [[representation]] of [[intersubjectivity|interpersonal relations]]'''.
This remains a key point throughout [[Lacan]]'s [[Jacques Lacan:Bibliography|work]], in which the emphasis on [[structure]] is a constant reminder that what determines the [[subject]] is not some supposed "[[essence]]" but simply his [[position ]] with respect to other [[subject]]s and other [[signifier]]s.
Already in 1938, we find [[Lacan]] arguing that "the most notable defect of [[analytic ]] [[doctrine]]" at that [[time ]] was that it tended "to ignore structure in favour of a [[dynamic ]] approach."<ref>{{1938}} p. 58</ref>
This anticipates his later emphasis on the [[symbolic order]] as the realm of [[structure]] which [[analyst]]s have ignored in favour of the [[imaginary]]; "[[social ]] structures are [[symbolic]]."<ref>{{Ec}} p. 132</ref>
=====Structural Linguistics=====
In the mid-1950s, when [[Lacan]] begins to reformulate his [[ideas ]] in [[terms ]] borrowed from [[Saussure]]an [[Saussure|structural linguistics]], the term "[[structure]]" comes to be increasingly associated with [[Saussure]]'s [[model ]] of [[language]].
[[Saussure]] [[analyzed ]] [[language]] (''[[language|la langue]]'') as a [[system ]] in which there are no positive terms, only differences.<ref>[[Ferdinand de Saussure|Saussure, Ferdinand de]]. 1916: 120</ref>
It is this [[concept ]] of a system in which each unit is constituted purely by virtue of its differences from the other units which comes to constitute the core [[meaning ]] of the term "[[structure]]" in [[Lacan]]'s [[{{LB}}|work]] from this point on.
[[Language]] is the paradigmatic [[structure]], and [[Lacan]]'s famous dictum, "the unconscious is structured like a language", is therefore tautologous, since "to be structured" and "to be like a language" mean the same [[thing]].
=====Claude Lévi-Strauss=====
=====Structuralist Movement=====
=====Structuralist Approach=====
[[Saussure]]'s structural approach to [[linguistic]]s was developed further by [[Roman Jakobson]], who developed [[phoneme ]] [[theory]]; [[Jakobson]]'s [[work ]] was then taken up by the [[French ]] anthropologist, [[Claude Lévi-Strauss]], who used the [[structure|structural phonemic model]] to analyze non-linguistic [[cultural ]] data such as [[anthropology|kinship relations]] and [[myth]].
This application of [[structure|structural analysis]] to [[anthropology]] launched the [[structure|structuralist movement]] by showing how the [[Saussure]]an concept of [[structure]] could be applied to an [[object ]] of enquiry other than [[language]].
[[Lacan]] was heavily influenced by all three of these thinkers, and in this sense he can be seen as part of the [[structure|structuralist movement]].
Alongside the references to [[language]], [[Lacan]] also refers the concept of [[structure]] to [[mathematics]], principally to [[mathematics|set theory]] and [[topology]].
In 1956, for example, he states that "a structure is in the first [[place ]] a group of elements forming a covariant set."<ref>{{S3}} p. 183</ref>
=====Topology=====
Two years later he again [[links ]] the concept of [[structure]] with [[mathematics|mathematical set theory]], and adds a reference to [[topology]].<ref>{{Ec}} p. 648-9</ref>).
By the 1970s, [[topology]] has replaced [[language]] as the principal paradigm of [[structure]] for [[Lacan]].
=====Surface and Depth=====
The concept of [[structure]] is often taken to imply an opposition between surface and depth, between directly observable phenomena and "deep structures" which are not the object of immediate [[experience]].
Such would seem to be the opposition implied in the [[distinction ]] [[Lacan]] draws between [[symptoms]] (surface) and [[structure]]s (depth).
However, [[Lacan]] does not in fact agree that such an opposition is implicit in the concept of [[structure]].<ref>{{Ec}} p. 649</ref>
On the one hand, he rejects the concept of "directly observable phenomena", arguing that observation is always already [[theoretical]].
On the other hand, he also rejects the [[idea ]] that [[structure]]s are somehow "deep" or distant from experience, arguing that they are [[present ]] in the field of experience itself; the [[unconscious]] is on the surface, and [[looking ]] for it in "the depths" is to miss it.
As with many other binary oppositions, the model [[Lacan]] prefers is that of the [[moebius strip]]; just as the two sides of the [[strip]] are in fact continuous, so [[structure]] is continuous with phenomena.
The most important feature of [[structure|structural analysis]] is not, then, any supposed distinction between [[structure|surface]] and [[structure|depth]], but, as [[Lévi-Strauss]] shows in his [[structure|structural analysis]] of [[myth]], the discovery of fixed relations between loci which are themselves empty.<ref>[[Lévi-Strauss]] 1955</ref>
In other [[words]], whatever elements may be placed in the positions specified by a given [[structure]], the relations between the positions themselves remain the same.
Thus the elements interact not on the basis of any inherent or intrinsic properties they possess, but simply on the basis of the positions which they occupy in the [[structure]].
====="Clinical Structures"=====
In line with many other [[psychoanalyst]]s, [[Lacan]] distinguishes three principal nosographic [[categories]]; [[neurosis]], [[psychosis]] and [[perversion]].
His originality lies in the fact that he regards these categories as [[structure]]s rather than simply as collections of [[symptom]]s.<ref>(N.B. [[Lacan]] prefers to [[speak ]] in terms of "[[structure|Freudian structures]]" rather than "[[structure|clinical structures]]", but the latter term is the one which predominates in the writings of [[Lacan]]ian [[psychoanalyst]]s today.)</ref>
=====[[Lacan]]ian Nosography=====
[[Lacan]] follows [[Freud]] in arguing that the classical method of [[psychoanalytic treatment]] (involving [[free association]] and the use of the couch) is only appropriate for [[neurotic]] [[subject]]s and [[perverse]] [[subject]]s, and not for [[psychotic]]s.
Thus when [[Lacanian]] [[analyst]]s work with psychotic [[patients]], they use a substantially modified method of [[treatment]].
=====Critical Period Hypothesis=====
One of the most fundamental axioms of [[psychoanalysis]] is that the [[subject]]'s [[structure|clinical structure]] is determined by his experiences in the first years of [[life]].
In this sense, [[psychoanalysis]] is based on a "critical period hypothesis"; the first years of life are the critical period in which the [[subject]]'s [[structure]] is determined.
Although it is not clear how long this critical period lasts, it is held that after this critical period the [[clinical ]] structure is fixed for ever and cannot be changed.
Neither [[psychoanalytic treatment]] nor anything else can, for example, turn a [[psychotic]] into a [[neurotic]].
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