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This chapter provides a brief account of some of the main [[ideas ]] of [[Freud]]'s [[theory]]. I will discuss the different ways Freud considered the [[human ]] [[mind]], the [[concept ]] of [[repression]], the [[Oedipus ]] [[complex]]; [[dreams]], slips, [[jokes]]; and [[psychoanalysis ]] as a [[practice]]. This account is inevitably selective (I do not deal with the first [[phase ]] when Freud was [[working ]] with [[patients ]] [[suffering ]] from [[hysteria]], nor with the last phase when Freud was speculating [[about ]] [[society ]] and human [[culture]]).1 At the end of the chapter I will focus on [[Lacan]]'s main interests and the way he has refashioned [[Freudian ]] theory. It has been said that [[Sigmund Freud ]] contributed to something much wider than merely the growth of a [[scientific ]] [[discipline]]. He has contributed to the [[whole ]] [[cultural ]] milieu of the twentieth century in that he has given us a way of [[seeing ]] things. He fashioned a new [[image ]] of what it is to be human. Freud, by the [[power ]] of his writings and by the breadth and audacity of his speculations,' revolutionised the [[thought]], the lives and the [[imagination ]] of an age.2 Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) considered the human mind from [[three ]] points of view: the '[[dynamic]]', the '[[economic]]' and the '[[topographical]]'. These are not mutually exclusive [[interpretations ]] but emphasise different aspects of the whole. All three are evidence of Freud's attempt to derive the mind from the [[body]].3 The dynamic point of view stresses the interplay of forces within the mind, arising from tensions that develop when [[instinctual ]] [[drives ]] meet the necessities of [[external ]] [[reality]]. What is necessarily given at the start are the [[needs ]] of the body itself: these are inseparably connected to [[feeling]]~ of [[pleasure ]] and [[pain]].

2 [[Jacques Lacan ]] [[Unpleasure ]] results from an increase in [[disturbance]]. In the interaction of the body with the external [[environment ]] a part of the mind Freud calls the 'ego' evolves to mediate the actions of the J:>ody so as to achieve optimal [[satisfaction ]] of its needs. The ego is particularly concerned with [[self]]-preservation. This implies that there has to be [[control ]] of the basic [[instincts ]] if there is to be adjustment to reality. Under the economic [[model ]] this is viewed as a [[struggle ]] between the 'reality [[principle]]' and the '[[pleasure principle]]' in which the body has to learn to postpone pleasure and accept a degree of unpleasure in [[order ]] to comply with [[social ]] [[demands]]. The [[third ]] point of view is the 'topographical', of which there are two versions. The [[psychic ]] [[apparatus ]] is here conceived of in a spatial [[metaphor ]] as [[divided ]] into [[separate ]] subsystems. In the first of the two versions Freud sees the mind as having a threefold [[division]], [[conscious]], [[preconscious ]] and [[unconscious]]. He equates [[consciousness ]] with the [[perception ]] [[system]], the sensing and ordering of the external [[world]]; the preconscious covers those elements of [[experience ]] which can be called into consciousness at will; the unconscious is made up of all that has been kept out of the preconscious-{;onscious system. From observations Freud posited that the unconscious system contained basic instincts and drives which he thought were primarily [[sexual ]] - he called the [[energy ]] behind these drives the '[[libido]]'. Gradually, as Freud extended the range of phenomena subjected to his scrutiny, this [[topographical model ]] began to appear simplistic.4 The second version of the topographical [[schema ]] was introduced by Freud in 1923 when he came to view the mind as having three distinct [[agencies]]: the id, a term applied retrospectively to the instinctual drives that spring from the constitutional needs of the body; the ego as having developed out of the id to be an [[agency ]] which regulates and opposes the drives; and the [[superego]], as [[representative ]] of parental and social influences upon the drives. The superego [[acts ]] as a [[conscience ]] constantly castigating the ego for failing to control the id. The ego is seen to be the vital arbiter between the conflicting demands of the id, the external world, and the superego. The ego's relation to the id might be compared with that of a rider to his horse. The horse supplies the locomotive energy, while the rider has the privilege of ~eciding on the [[goal ]] and of guiding the powerful

[[animal]]'s movement. But only too often there arises between the ego and the id the not precisely [[ideal ]] [[situation ]] of the rider [[being ]] obliged to [[guide ]] the horse along the path by which it itself wants to gO.5 During the last phase of Freud's [[thinking]], which coincides with the last twenty years of his [[life]], it was the opposition of ego and id that was in the forefront of his attention. Freud described the [[change ]] in his thinking as a shift in interest from the [[repressed ]] to the repressing forces in the mind. Freud found that though the ego, as the repressing agency was called, was in large part conscious, in so far as it was [[responsible ]] for repression it operated [[unconsciously]]. With this model of mind Freud saw psychoanalysis as having a quite specific task. He expressed the view that psychoanalysis was an [[instrument ]] to enable the ego to achieve a progressive conquest of the id: Its [[intention ]] is ... to strengthen the ego, to make it more independent of the superego, to widen its field of perception and enlarge its organization so that it can appropriate fresh portions of the id. Where it was, there ego shall be. It is the [[work ]] of culture - not unlike draining the Zuider Zee.6 For Freud, [[psychoanalytical ]] investigation was rather like archaeology. Just as an archaeologist investigates the buried remains of a city, the [[analyst ]] investigates 'buried' [[childhood]]. He wrote: 'There is, in fact, no better analogy for repression, by which something in the mind is at once made inaccessible and preserved, than burial of the sort to which Pompeii fell a [[victim ]] and from which it could emerge once more through the work of spades. '7 The id wants its wishes [[satisfied ]] whether or not they are compatible with external demands. The ego feels itself threatened by the pressure of the unacceptable wishes. [[Memories ]] of these experiences, that is [[images ]] and ideas associated with [[them]], become charged with unpleasurable feeling, and are thus [[barred ]] from con= sciousness. This is the operation known as repression. Every human being has to undergo this repression of what Freud named the 'pleasure principle' by the '[[reality principle]]'. (We are all repressed to some degree but for some of us the repression may become excessive and make us ill.) Repression

serves to keep [[guilt]]-laden wishes out of conscious experience. The [[symptoms]], dreams and [[slips of the tongue ]] that occur in everyday life [[represent ]] the '[[return ]] of the repressed', a [[mechanism ]] that marks both the emergence of the [[forbidden ]] [[wish ]] and the [[resistance ]] to it. Unconscious wishes strive continually to break through against the counterforce exerted by the ego. The [[censorship ]] of the ego can, however, be subverted; the drives or wishes can get through in disguise, as the so-called 'compromise [[formations]]' of the [[return of the repressed]].

Freud maintained that [[infantile ]] [[sexuality ]] emerged 'spontaneously from [[internal ]] causes'. Sexuality is undifferentiated in [[terms ]] of both its [[object ]] and aim; Freud called this condition the 'polymorphously [[perverse]]' [[state]]. From its unstructured state the [[child]]'s libido develops through specific phases in which the sexual [[instinct ]] is attached to, and finds release through, the various '[[erotogenic ]] zones'. Freud suggested that human sexual [[development ]] follows a course through quite specific phases: the [[oral ]] [[stage]], the [[anal ]] stage, the [[phallic ]] stage and the [[latency ]] period. Freud regarded the discovery of the 'polymorphously perverse' [[nature ]] of [[infant ]] sexuality and the 'erotogenic zone' conception of development as two of the most fundamental ideas of psychoanalysis. Freud argued, in short, that sexual [[identity ]] is not merely anatomically determined, but psychically constructed. Until this is achieved the infant's sexuality is 'polymorphous'; it is at the mercy of the component instincts, functioning independently and varying in their aim, their object and their source. The match of [[biological ]] sex with the sexual [[role ]] determined by society is achieved, not given. For Freud this matching is accomplished through the combined workings of the [[Oedipus complex ]] and the [[castration ]] complex. Freud sees the child's [[relationship ]] with its [[parents ]] as critical for the [[achievement ]] of its proper [[sexual identity]]. [[Love ]] of the [[mother ]] is dominant in the early formative years. Later, the perception of'the [[father ]] as rival becomes insistent for the boy-child to the point where he is drawn into phantasies of the killing of this rival and of possessing the mother. This is the Oedipus complex.8

The early dyadic or two-term relationship between infant and mother now opens up into a [[triangle ]] consisting of child and both parents; and for the child, the parent of the same sex will come to [[figure ]] as a rival in its affections for the parent of the opposite sex. What persuades the boy-child to abandon his incestuous [[desire ]] for the mother is the father's [[threat ]] of castration. The father is experienced as the source of all [[authority]]. The threat [[need ]] not necessarily be spoken; but the boy, in perceiving that the [[girl ]] is herself '[[castrated]]', begins to imagine this as a [[punishment ]] which might be visited upon himself. The boy thus abandons his love for the mother and moves towards [[identification ]] with the father, with the [[understanding ]] that he too can in [[time ]] occupy such a [[position ]] of power. The trajectory fonhe girl-child is not so straightforward. In her [[case ]] the [[complexes ]] work in reverse, and the castration 'complex ushers in the Oedipus complex. She interprets the [[absence ]] of a [[penis ]] as a failure in provision on the part of the mother. Under the influence of this disappointment she turns away in hostility from her mother, but in the unconscious the wish for a penis is not abandoned; it is replaced by the wish to bear the father a child. Hence the girl becomes the rival of the mother for the father's love. Freud saw the [[fading ]] of the Oedipus complex in the girlchild as a more uncertain [[process]], because the identification with the father's law, facilitated by the [[anticipation ]] of power, is not so secure. I [[want ]] to emphasise the centrality of the Oedipus complex because it is the nucleus of [[desire, ]] repression and sexual identity. It is the point at which we are produced and constituted as [[subjects]]. The Oedipus complex represents for Freud the beginnings of [[morality]], conscience, law and all forms of authority. The father's [[real ]] or imagined [[prohibition ]] of [[incest ]] is [[symbolic ]] of all the higher authority to be later encountered; and in introjecting this patriarchal law the child begins to [[form ]] what Freud calls ~the 'superego', the punitive [[voice ]] of conscience within it. Maturity and growth are conceived by Freud in terms of the successful [[resolution ]] of the Oedipus complex. The struggle to overcome the complex, however, is never quite resolved, and one of its residues is a life-long [[ambivalence ]] towards the keeping and breaking of taboos and laws.

Having given an account of the principal ideas of Freud, I now want to [[signal ]] some of the ways Lacan has developed the Freudian heritage. Lacan's work is a strikingly original attempt to 'rewrite' Freudianism in ways relevant to all those concerned with the question ofthe human [[subject]], its [[place ]] in society, and above all its relationship to [[language]]. One of the things Lacan has done is to reinterpret Freud in the light of [[structuralist ]] and post-structuralist theories of [[discourse]]. Lacan emphasises the importance of an intense and personal reexamination of Freud's original [[texts]]. He has emended our understanding of Freud's work and, some would say, his [[reading ]] of Freud has created a new version of psychoanalysis. Lacan's psychoanalytical ideas have made possible new theorisations of the [[individual ]] and society, and new forms of social criticism. Lacan, taking from Freud his desire to establish a system of [[knowledge]], has made use of (and criticised) [[ethology]], [[psychology]], [[philosophy]], [[linguistics]], [[logic ]] and [[mathematics]]. He has put psychoanalysis in touch with [[other ]] disciplines, with new areas of thought.

He has, for example, revised Freudian theory by the use of [[Saussure]]'s [[structural ]] linguistics, a discipline not available to Freud. Lacan has made [[people ]] aware of language in the theory and practice of psychoanalysis. Lacan has made a radical critique of the [[psychoanalytic ]] institution itself. There is considerable controversy over Lacan's unorthodox ideas. He sees psychoanalysis more as a calling than as a career. He personifies a conception of [[analysis ]] not as a quasimedical [[technique ]] focused on '[[cure]]' but as a scientific discipline and a process of individual research and self-discovery. (If a cure comes at all in psychoanalysis it comes as a kind of bonus or secondary gain.) For Lacan, psychoanalysis is not a system of cure, it is not a method of explaining or guaranteeing knowledge, but is a series of techniques for [[listening ]] to and questioning desire. One interesting point is that the reception given to Lacan's theory has varied from country to country; each set of circumstances has emphasised different aspects of his work. In [[France]], and in [[Latin ]] countries in general, the influence of Lacan has been mainly [[clinical ]] and closely linked with psychoanalytic practice. In AngloSaxon countries the clinical aspect has, to a large extent, been [[absent ]] and the influence of Lacan has been crucial in the areas of [[feminism]], [[film ]] and [[literature]]. We should also bear in mind that there are many interpretations of Lacan's work. For example, in France, there are differences between the older and younger 'generations'. On the one hand there is the approach of the old [[school]], or first generation, of Lacanians (Octave and Maud Mannoni, Serge Leclaire, Moustafa Safouan and [[others]]) who emphasise clinical problems and the - crucial role of language in the psychoanalytical process - an approach largely based on Lacan's writings in the 1950s, the era of high [[structuralism]]. On the other hand, the younger generation, led by Jacques-[[Alain ]] [[Miller]], have emphasised the [[formalisation ]] of [[Lacanian ]] psychoanalysis into [[mathematical ]] statements ('[[mathemes]]'), and have pointed out the differences between the different [[stages ]] of his teaching. I While Freud's work is haunted by [[biology]], Lacan's work, on the other hand, has a strong anti-biological tendency. Lacan wants to focus on what is distinctively human in the human mind, on the cultural rather than the '[[natural]]' determining forces, and on [[anthropology ]] and [[sociology ]] rather than on biology.

In [[Anglo-Saxon ]] countries the dominant [[interpretation ]] of Freudian thought is that the unconscious is close to the basic instincts or the b.iological needs of human beings. This viewpoint is derived from Freud's later works. Lacan's '[[return to Freud]]' is essentially a return to the spirit of the earlier works, the three books which show Freud's [[fascination ]] with language and the unconscious: The [[Interpretation of Dreams]], The [[Psychopathology ]] of Everyday Lift, and [[Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious]]. IS In Lacan's work there is also an emphasis on language, but it is not the usual [[notion ]] oflanguage which involves the understanding and consciousness of a subject. Inspired by the [[linguistic ]] theories of [[Ferdinand de Saussure ]] and Roman [[Jakobson ]] (whose ideas were not available to Freud), Lacan's view of language is different: it is not only man who speaks, but that in man and through man it speaks. By reinterpreting Freudianism in terms of language, Lacan permits us to explore the relations between the unconscious and human society. He makes us realise that the unconscious is not a private region '[[inside]]' us, but is an effect of our relations with one [[another]]. The unconscious [[exists ]] 'between' us, as our relationships do. The unconscious surrounds us and weaves itself - rather like language - through us. Indeed, Lacan regards the unconscious as [[structured ]] like a language. For Lacan the unconscious is a [[particular ]] effict of language, but this language, for Lacan as for the structuralists, is never something entirely within our individual control. In England it was assumed for a long time that Lacan was a structuralist. This impression was fostered by influential studies like Anika Lemaire's Jacques Lacan.16 She discusses Lacan only in linguistic terms and prioritises the influence of Ferdinand de Saussure, [[Roman Jakobson ]] and Levi-[[Strauss]]. Lemaire takes the systematicity of Lacan's work for granted and reads it in purely [[synchronic ]] terms. Structuralist references dominate everything; Lacan's debts to [[Hegel ]] and [[Kojeve]], [[Heidegger]], [[Sartre ]] and others simply [[disappear]]. There are, then, many problems in trying to [[understand ]] Lacan's life-work. Was he a poet or a mathematician? Was he, basically, a [[surrealist ]] or a structuralist? I [[think ]] it is wrong to polarise his work in a dichotomous, 'either/or' way. Perhaps it is better to think of his work as having different periods or phases. There are

numerous differences between the many periods of his work and it is difficult to define his [[concepts ]] because they are always changing. It will be argued that Lacan integrates feeling and [[reason]], that he is both poet and mathematician, surrealist and structuralist. I want to stress that Lacan's early [[philosophical ]] roots are in [[phenomenology ]] and that he was particularly influenced by Kojeve's reading of Hegel. Later, in the early 1950s, Lacan drew heavily on linguistics and structuralism. Those commentators who focus largely on the structuralist aspects tend to stress Lacan's [[antagonism ]] to humanistic philosophy and psychology, disciplines that treat man as an actor who wills his [[action]]. In contrast, Lacan sees man as a submitting object of [[processes ]] that transcend him. Structuralist theories emphasise the possibility of discovering [[universal ]] laws about man and society. Lacan's [[affirmation ]] of the centrality oflanguage to thought and his emphasis on [[logical ]] and mathematical formalisation is meant to lay the groundwork for a unification of knowledge. Though Lacan often spoke of the primacy oflanguage he always believed that there was more to experience than language. He never accepted the pure priority of language. Lacan was always concerned with the interface of experience and [[structure]]. Lacan stresses the role of language and the role of desire. For Lacan, once the child has the capacity for language there is a qualitative change in his or her [[psychical ]] structure - s/he becomes a subject. We are [[speaking ]] subjects. However, in language, we can never completely express what we want. There is always a gap between what we say and what we mean. Language is linked with desire. Desire is a fundamental [[lack]], a [[hole ]] in being. The desire of die subject is in perpetual movement but it can never find fulfilment. Lacan, in short, wants to cOl\vert our feeling of powerlessness to an understanding of logical [[impossibility]]. But even if you find some of these' reasons for studying Lacan convincing there is still the problem of reading. Lacan's style is difficult. It has been called incomprehensible, esoteric, and obscure. His style belongs to a [[French ]] [[tradition ]] that can be traced back to poets like [[Mallarme]]. Indeed, Catherine Clement has written of Lacan not only as a founder of a new [[psychoanalytic theory ]] but as she experienced him, a shaman, a sorcerer possessed by a

As Freud taught us, jokes are an expression of the unconscious; puns contain many nuances of [[meaning]]. Lacan uses puns to demonstrate how the analyst works: to [[interpret ]] is to play on [[words]]. Early in his career, Lacan wrote poems and articles in the surrealist Minotaure. In this journal appeared the work of [[Breton]], Eluard, [[Dali]], Masson, [[Picasso ]] and many others. He saw a great deal of the [[surrealists]]. As everyone [[knows]], the surrealists were heavily influenced by Freud's work. They loved language and playing with words. They liked the Freudian [[idea ]] that when you use the wrong [[word]], when you say a word other than the one you meant to say, it is not really you who are speaking. You are spoken. In trying to understand a new theory it is often helpful to [[know ]] what the theorist is against. Lacan is fundamentally antagonistic to the Anglo-Saxon philosophical tradition. Within this tradition the British, in particular, emphasise the virtues of 'common-[[sense]]'. It is assumed that common-sense is, in some way, real. It is taken for granted that we can act rationally on the basis of common-sense. In the field of psychoanalysis the British tend to stress the ability of the analyst. Such beliefs are contested by the Lacanian school, who see these ideas as [[ideological]]. These ideological views are expressed most clearly in the work of the ego-psychologists. [[Ego-psychology]], a powerful movement, began in [[Vienna ]] in the 1920s and 1930s. Heinz [[Hartmann]], Ernst [[Kris ]] and Rudolph [[Loewenstein]], the most famous members, were supported by [[Anna Freud ]] in [[London]]. [[Looking ]] at [[mental ]] [[conflict]], they held that there was a conflict-free zone in the ego. In their, view, patients came to the analyst because they had a weak ego, and had to model their ego on the strong one of the analyst. The aim of analysis is to enable patients to love and to work. When the ego-psychologists emigrated to the [[United States ]] it became particularly noticeable that they stressed [[adaptation ]] to group norms. There was pressure to conform; for example, the egopsychologists stressed [[genital ]] sex as being the only 'wholesome' form and implied that other forms of sexual [[activity ]] were deviant. Ego-psychology fitted in with the dominant sociology of the time, the consensual structural functionalism of Talcott Parsons. One of Lacan's achievements is that he has made us aware that psychoanalysis should not be used for the [[purpose ]] of social adjustment, it should not be an apparatus for the regulation of the human subject and its adaptation to 'reality'.

Lacan stresses the fact that psychoanalysis is about human sexuality and the unconscious. For [[psychoanalysts ]] sexuality can never be equated with genitality, nor is it the simple expression of a biological [[drive]]. It is always psychosexuality, a system of conscious and unconscious human phantasies involving activities that produce pleasure beyond the satisfaction of any [[physiological ]] need. The [[psychosexual ]] drive arises from various sources, seeks satisfaction in many different ways, and makes use of many diverse [[objects ]] for its aim of achieving pleasure. Some [[analysts]], like Ernest [[Jones]], described the acquisition of sexual identity in terms of ego development. Lacan is strongly against this; in his view, the unconscious never ceases to challenge our [[apparent ]] identity as subjects. In contrast to the ego-psychologists, Lacan stresses the unconscious. He insists that the unconscious is governed by its own laws. Its images do not follow each other as in the sequential logic of consciousness but are condensed into each other or are [[displaced ]] on to something else. Because it is unconscious, direct access to it is [[impossible]], but, nevertheless, its manifestations are apparent most notably in dreams, everyday slips of the tongue, jokes, in [[neurotic ]] and [[psychotic ]] [[behaviour]], and in symptoms. It needs to be emphasised that all psychoanalytic practice is based on the ability to hear something other than what the [[patient ]] says, on the capacity to hear, within the conscious [[message ]] [[enunciated ]] by the [[speaker]], the patterns produced by the unconscious. Lacan is antagonistic to all those who assume that the human subject (the individual) exists from the beginning. For Lacan neither sexuality nor the unconscious are pre-given facts; they are constructions. The human subject is constructed in and through language. Language does not arise from within the individual; it is always out there in the world [[outside]]. In short, the human animal is [[born ]] into language and it is within the terms oflanguage that the human subject is constructed. Lacan's thought disrupts and challenges many assumptions about knowledge and [[subjectivity ]] common to the social [[sciences ]] and humanities as well as in everyday life. Lacan's fusion of language-like processes with Freud's notion of sexuality and the unconscious are very useful to thinkers in a wide variety of disciplines in which questions of subjectivity, desire, reading and interpretation are usually ignored. His interest in psychoanalysis as

a [[science ]] of interpretation gives him an appeal far beyond the psychoanalytic [[community ]] itself. Writers in many domains are now making extensive use of Lacan's concepts and considerable developments are taking place in [[feminist ]] thought, [[literary ]] studies and film criticism through the use of Lacanian theory. Indeed, I want to argue that Lacanian thought has stimulated important [[intellectual ]] advances throughout cultural studies. What is identity and how are subjects constituted? What is the relationship between the [[political ]] and the personal? What are the functions of language in everyday life? What is the nature of desire? These are all questions about which Lacan has something interesting to say ..