Changes

'''[[Psychosis]]'' is one of three '''[[structure|clinical structures]]'''.  The other two are '''[[neurosis]]''' and ''[[perversion]]''.  Each [[structure]] is distinguished by a different operation: [[neurosis]] by the operation of [[repression]], [[perversion]] by the operation of [[disavowal]], and [[psychosis]] by the operation of '''[[foreclosure]]'''.   By way of [[foreclosure]] of the [[signifier]] of the [[Name-of-the-Father]] it is possible to understand [[psychosis]] and distinguish it from [[neurosis]].

'''[[Foreclosure]]''' corresponds to [[Lacan]]'s translation of ''[[Verwerfung]]'' ([[repudiaton]]).   The [[Name-of-the-Father]] is not integrated in the [[symbolic]] [[order]] of the [[psychotic]], it is [[foreclosed]]: a [[hole]] is left in the [[symbolic]] [[chain]].   In [[psychosis]] "the unconscious is present but not functioning."   The [[psychotic]] [[structure]] results from a malfunction of the [[Oedipus complex]], a [[lack]] in the [[paternal function]]: the [[paternal function]] is reduced to the [[image]] of the [[father]] (the [[symbolic]] reduced to the [[imaginary]]).

When both conditions are fulfilled, [[psychosis]] is actualized; the latent [[psychosis]] becomes manifest in [[hallucinations]] and/or [[delusions]].   For [[Lacan]] [[psychosis]] includes [[paranoia]] (Papin sisters), so he bases his arguments on the [[Schreber case]] (as related by [[Freud]]).   He argues that [[Schreber]]'s [[psychosis]] was activated by both his failure to produce a [[child]] and his election to an important position in the judiciary.   These experiences confronted him with the question of paternity in the [[real]]- called the [[Name-of-the-Father]] into [[symbolic]] opposition with the [[subject]].   The [[Name of the Father]] is the [[fundamental signifier]] which permits [[signification]] to proceed normally.   It both confers [[identity]] on the [[subject]] (naming and positioning it within the [[symbolic]] [[order]]) and signifies the Oedipical [[prohibition]].   When [[foreclosed]], it is not included in the [[symbolic]] [[order]].  [[Lacan]] rejects the approach of limiting the [[analysis]] of [[psychosis]] to the [[imaginary]]: "nothing is to be expected from the way psychosis is explored at the level of the imaginary, since the imaginary mechanism is what gives psychotic alienation its form, but not its dynamics."   Only by focusing on the [[symbolic]] are we able to point to the fundamental determining element of [[psychosis]]: the [[hole]] in the [[symbolic]] [[order]] caused by [[foreclosure]] and the consequent imprisonment of the [[psychotic]] [[subject]] in the [[imaginary]].   "The importance given to language phenomena in psychosis is for us the most fruitful lesson of all."

The [[Saussurian]] opposition between [[signifier]] and [[signified]] leads to the radical separation of the two [[chain]]s, until they are tied through anchoring points, ''[[points de caption]]''.   These are points at which "signifier and signified are knotted together."   Despite the continual [[slip]]page of the [[signified]] under the [[signifier]], there are nevertheless in the [[neurotic]] [[subject]] certain points of attachment between [[signifier]] and [[signified]] where the [[slip]]page is temporarily halted.   A certain number of these points "are necessary for a person to be called normal" and "when they are not established or when they give way" the result is [[psychosis]].   In the psychotic experience "the signifier and the signified present themselves in a completely divided form."

Thus the phenomena most notable in [[psychosis]] are disorders of [[language]]: the presence of such disorders is a necessary condition for its diagnosis: holophrases and the extensive use of neologisms (new words or already existing ones which the [[psychotic]] redefines).   These language disorders are due to the [[psychotic]]'s [[lack]] of a sufficient number of anchoring points: the psychotic experience is characterized by a constant [[slip]]page of the [[signifier]] under the [[signified]], which is a disaster for [[signification]].   Later, [[Lacan]] will posit that there is a continual "cascade of reshapings of the signifier from which the increasing disaster of the imaginary proceeds, until the level is reached at which signifier and signified are stabilized in the delusional metaphor."   Thus "the nucleus of psychosis has to be linked to a rapport between the subject and the signifier in its most formal dimension, in its dimension as pure signifier. If the neurotic inhabits language, the psychotic is inhabited, possessed by language."  "On a question preliminary to any possible treatment of psychosis" (‘’Écrits: A Selection’’) is a text written in 1958 and contemporary with ‘’Les formations de l'inconscient’’; it is a synthesis of ‘’Les psychoses’’ and focuses mainly on the term [[foreclosure]], ‘’forclusion’’, German ‘’Verwerfung’’.  In the [[Schema L]] "...the condition of the subject S (neurosis or psychosis) is dependent on what is being unfolded in the Other O. What is being unfolded is articulated like a discourse ([[the unconscious is the discourse of the Other]])."

This schema articulates the [[imaginary]] triad with the [[symbolic]] triad, both of which cut the quadrangle of [[reality]].   The term '[[reality]]' is ambiguous in that it designates both our rapport to the world and our rapport to the [[Real]] as inaccessible.   [[Schema R]] is elaborated in terms of a particular form of [[psychosis]] ([[Schreber]]). Later, ‘’[[Kant avec Sade]]’’ (1962) will develop the [[perverse]] version as [[Lacan]] is concerned with creating the formal bases for his theory before addressing the problems of the [[treatment]] of [[psychosis]]. The preliminary question seems to be the one of the [[Other]], whose presence commands everything else.   It is the place from which the [[subject]] is confronted with the question of its [[existence]] ([[sexuation]] and [[death]]).   What is the [[Other]]? Is it the [[unconscious]] where "it speaks?"   Is it the place of [[memory]] that conditions the indestructibility of certain [[desire]]s?   Is it the place where the [[signifier]] of [[signifier]]s is the [[phallus]]?   Is it the place [[symbolize]]d by the [[Name-of-the-Father]] since the [[Oedipus complex]] is consubstantial with the [[unconscious]]?   When the [[paternal metaphor]] does not allow the [[subject]] to evoke the [[signification]] of the [[phallus]], when the response to the call of the [[Name-of-the-Father]] is a [[lack]] of the [[signifier]] itself, then it is a case of [[psychosis]]. "This applies to the metaphor of the Name-of-the-Father, that is, the metaphor that puts this Name in the place that was first symbolized by the operation of the mother's absence."   It designates the [[metaphor]]ical, [[substitutive]], character of the [[Oedipus complex]].

It is the fundamental [[metaphor]] on which all [[signification]] depends: thus all [[signification]] is [[phallus|phallic]].  If the [[Name-of-the-Father]] is [[foreclosed]] ([[psychosis]]), there can be no [[paternal metaphor]] and no [[phallic]] [[signification]].-->