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1962-1963 (400 pp.)-SEMINAIRE X: L'ANGOISSE (SEMINAR X: ANXIETY)-ANONYMOUS VERSION 1982
According to Lacan, in Inhibitions, Symptoms and Anxiety (1926), Freud spoke of everything but anxiety in order to better "leave the emptiness in which there is anxiety." This affect, related to the structure of the subject, is not repressed but adrift; only the signifiers that anchor it are repressed. For Lacan, G1uiety is not without an object. but this object is simply unknown. Because anxiety is linked to desire and because fantasy is llie-support of de�sire, the starting point is the algebraic formula of fantasy,whlci1- was al�ready elaborated in the graph of desire (36) and which'wuulabe at the center of La Logiqlle dllfantasme (65): $ 0 a (Subject barred by the signifier/relation to/ objet a). The problem here was to _[[User:Riot Hero|Riot Hero]] 20:10, 22 September 2006 (CDT)e this objet a which ~el~t~s anxiety with desire: "Anxiety is the signal of its appearance." This concept was elaborated here for the first time, starting from the p-art.Jlbject (33) or from the agalJ.11a with its brilliance as part object or fetish (43). It would become more precise throughout the seminars.
The objet a is the cause of desire and not its aim; such is its function, and
.... n._. . . __ . _
it did not change throughout the years. However, its definitions were more complex and sometimes aleatory. Here, it is approached from two different points of view. On the 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"; it is that which falls from its position, the remainder of the operation described in L'ldentification (50). The objet a has nothing to do with the a of the mirror stage, it is not specular; neither is it "visible in what constitutes for man the image of his desire." It is what is lost during t!1~()riginllL~.9!lst~t.!1tion of the subject in which the Father"Tsprlmari'Is it situated on the side ofiiieReal? If one considers the~QQQ'y; the'obJet a is not created by the separation from the mother (a mere' parasited body), but by the separation from the body proper. The objet a is the embryo's envelope, the placenta (what Lacan later called l' homme/ette), and even the"breast tied to the subject and detachedJ[Om the mother, as the figure of Saint Ag~tha in Zurbaran's painting shows, car�rying her breasts on a tray. They are all objects of desire for us, and there is
The Works of Jacques Lacan ,.
no anxiety for the woman. For Lacan, there is an obvious analogy with the figure of Uie "cross-cap" I in which the separation from an enigmatic a takes place. At the heart of a system centered on the signifier, the objet a seems to be the irreducible Real, "a lack which the symbol does not fill in," a "real deprivation," and "an insect on the Moebius strip."
Another ~Lmj~--.!~at anxiety arises when lack comes!!! be lacking. For example, [[User:Riot Hero|Riot Hero]]j.YJ.ulJ?.t.a.:-noita1&m.9L!t1e maternal breast, but ~ threat of its i!1¥Ilil1~.!lce. Lacan uses Jones's analysis of nightmare, this incubus [incube]
or succubus [succube], "this being who weighs on our chest with his opaque weight()f foreIgi1 jouissance," "who crushes you under his jouissance" and who is "a questioner" (the Sphinx). Anxiety, like desire. is thusli.nkcd to the Other, b~t_ to t~~ jouissance and to th~.Jie.mand oUbe-Other. Lacan links it
to the praying mantis and to the terrible commandmem ... QLtmu:~r.:Qod: "louis!" whliior;hose apparition do the suddengap[beance] of an opening window (Wolf Man) and the three knocks before the curtain rises at the theater announce? An uncanny strangeness or familiarity.jt is the horror of the Thing (43) against which only desire and law combined are said to be able to protect us. This takes place when the subject loses the support of the lack that allows \6\ hi~ t<? consti.!.u~e himself: - <I> (the Qhallus as symbol of lack). Lacan admits\ \'<. that_ it is difficult to situate - <I> and the objet a in relation to each other. The phal~ is iiorileilriiesthe agalma:-3highly desirable part object (43), and sometimes an "operating" libidinal reserve that saves the subject from the fascination mne parfobject.· Rence, the importance he granted to what he calls symbol!~~on in front of the "father's opaque and ungraspable desire," a castration at the origin of the law.
What happens in(~? How can one measure how much anxiety a pa�tient can bear? How can one deal with one's own anxiety as a psychoanalyst? Once again, the desire of the analyst is involved and the analyst's ~n iSll to help to inst.i~~:.!-[[User:Riot Hero|Riot Hero]] 20:10, 22 September 2006 (CDT)_ wit[[User:Riot Hero|Riot Hero]]_x!.~~.~ <1>, an emptjpg who§£..WllCtion is nonetheless structural. His functIOn IS also to know when he is placed in the positio-n~f Q,the big Other, or of a, the objet a. Otherwise, th~ is an actinR out in whICh the SiibjecfiderilifieSWIiIlilie objet a as waste or trash. The acting ~'belongs to the order of anxiety whereas the passage a I' acte belongs to that of emotion. It is a call to the other and it must be interpreted. However, the examples given (Dora, the young woman in Freud's Case of
,
Homosexuality in a Woman, Balint's "terminal crisis") and the critique of
Little's, Low's, and Szasz' articles were not yet successful in establishing this distinction.
Reading the obscure passages patiently, one may learn what discourse to \ I speak in order to seduce irresistibly, thanks to the small a. One can also find out that the Freudian discovery stems from the fact that, in front of Anna 0.,
I. In English in the original.
190 00881 ER
Frcud had to usc his own anxicty bcforc dcsirc-an "anxicty rootcd in thc priIH.:iplc of his ridiculous attachmcnt to this impossib]c woman who inciden�tally buried him, Mrs Freud."
==Introduction==
