This early essay (1949) identifies {{Title}}By [[Jacques Lacan]]{{Author}}<BR>==Introduction==The conception of the point [[mirror]]-[[phase]] which I introduced at which our last congress, thirteen years ago, has since become more or less established in the [[practice]] of the "[[French]] group; I" (ego) begins [[think]] it nevertheless worthwhile to formulate itself bring it again to your attention, especially today, for the light that it sheds on the [[formation]] of the I as a socially constructed agentwe [[experience]] it in [[psychoanalysis]]. In Lacan<ref>''Translator's terminology, the mirror stage note'': '<i>I</i>' is the hinge between the *Imaginary used here and the *Symbolic (concepts wethroughout to translate [[Lacan]]'s '<i>je</i>'ll discuss further , in class)'le <i>je</i>', 'la [[fonction]] du <i>je</i>', etc. These concepts are '<i>Ego</i>' translates 'le <i>moi</i>' and is used frequently in contemporary literary criticism and theorythe normal [[sense]] of [[psychoanalytic]] [[literature]]. As usualOn '<i>je</i>', cuts and explanation that I make are in square brackets; see Note 2 below.</ref> It is an experience which leads us to oppose any [[philosophy]] directly issuing from the paragraphs have been numbered for ease of reference''[[Cogito]]''.
Some of you may perhaps [[remember]] our starting point in a feature of [[human]] [[behaviour]] illuminated by a fact of comparative [[psychology]]. The human offspring, at an age when he is for a [[time]], however short, outdone by the chimpanzee in instrumental intelligence, can nevertheless already recognize as such his own [[image]] in a mirror. This [[recognition]] manifests itself in the illuminatory [[mimicry]] of the ''AhaErlebnis'', which Köhler sees as the expression of situational apperception, an essential [[moment]] of the act of intelligence.
This act, far from exhausting itself, as with the chimpanzee, once the image has been mastered and found empty, in the [[child]] immediately rebounds in a series of gestures in which he playfully experiences the relations of the assumed movements of the image to the reflected [[environment]], and of this [[virtual]] [[complex]] to the [[reality]] it reduplicates the child's own [[body]], and the persons or even things in his proximity.
The conception of the mirror stage that I introduced This [[event]] can take [[. . .place]] has , as we have known since become more or less established in Baldwin, from the practice age of six months, and its [[repetition]] has often compelled us to ponder over the French startling [psychoanalytic[spectacle] group] of the nurseling in front of the mirror. HoweverUnable as yet to walk, I think it worthwhile or even to bring it again to your attentionstand up, and narrowly confined as he is within some support, human or artificial (what, in [[France]], we call a ''trotte-bébé''), he nevertheless surmounts, especially todayin a flutter of jubilant [[activity]], for the light it sheds on the formation obstructions of his support in [[order]] to fix his attitude in a more or less leaning-forward [[position]], and bring back an instantaneous aspect of the <i>I</i> as we experience image to hold it in psychoanalysis. It is an experience that leads us to oppose any philosophy directly issuing from the <i>Cogito</i> his [[reference is to the tradition stemming from Descartes : I think, therefore I am etcgaze]].]
For us, this activity retains the [[meaning]] we have given it up to the age of eighteen months. This meaning discloses a [[libidinal]] dynamism, which has hitherto remained problematic, as well as an [[ontological]] [[structure]] of the human [[world]] which accords with our reflections on [[paranoiac]] [[knowledge]].
Some of you may recall that this conception originated We have only to [[understand]] the mirror-phase ''as an [[identification]]'', in a feature of human behavior illuminated by a fact of comparative psychology. The childthe [[full]] sense which [[analysis]] gives to the term: namely, at an age the transformation which takes place in the [[subject]] when he assumes an image -whose [[predestination]] to this phase-effect is for a time, however short, outdone sufficiently indicated by the chimpanzee use, in instrumental intelligenceanalytical [[theory]], can nevertheless already recognize as such his own image in a mirror. of the old term ''[[imago]]''. . .]
This jubilant assumption of his mirror-image by the little man, at the ''[[infans]]'' [[stage]], still sunk in his motor incapacity and nurseling dependency, would seem to exhibit in an exemplary [[situation]] the [[symbolic]] [[matrix]] in which the I is precipitated in a primordial [[form]], before it is objectified in the [[dialectic]] of identification with the [[other]], and before [[language]] restores to it, in the [[universal]], its function as subject.
This actform would have to be called the ''[[Ideal]]-I''<ref>Throughout this article we leave in its peculiarity the [[translation]] we have adopted for [[Freud]]'s <i>Ideal-Ich</i> (i.e. '<i>je-idéal</i>'), without further comment, save that we have not maintained it since.</ref>, far from exhausting itselfif we wanted to restore it to a familiar scheme, as in the case of sense that it will also be the monkeyroot-stock for secondary identifications, once among which we place the functions of libidinal normalization. But the image has been mastered and found empty, immediately rebounds in important point is that this form situates the case [[instance]] of the child ''ego'', before its [[social]] determination, in a series of gestures in fictional direction, which he experiences in play will always remain irreducible for the relation between [[individual]] alone, or rather, which will rejoin the movements assumed in the image and [[development]] of the reflected environmentsubject only asymptotically, and between this virtual complex and whatever the reality it reduplicates --success of the child[[dialectical]] syntheses by which he must resolve as 's 'I'' his discordance with his own body, and the persons and things around himreality.
==The Body as Gestalt==
This event can take place The fact is that the [[. . .total]] from form of the body by which the subject anticipates in a mirage the age [[maturation]] of six monthshis [[power]] is given to him only as ''[[Gestalt]]'', that is to say in an exteriority in which this form is certainly more constituent than constituted, but in which it appears to him above all in a contrasting size that fixes it and its repetition has often made me reflect upon a symmetry that inverts it which are in [[conflict]] with the startling spectacle turbulence of the infant in front of motions which the mirrorsubject feels animating him. Unable Thus, this ''Gestalt'' -- whose pregnancy should be regarded as yet linked to walkthe [[species]], or even to stand upthough its motor style remains unrecognizable -- by these twin aspects of its [[appearance]], symbolizes the [[mental]] permanence of the ''I'', and held tightly at the same time as he it prefigures its [[alienating]] destination; it is by some supportpregnant with the correspondences which unite the ''I'' with the statue in which man projects himself, with the phantoms which dominate him, human or artificial finally, with the [[. . .automaton]], he nevertheless overcomesin which, in a flutter of jubilant activityan ambiguous relation, the obstructions world of his support and, fixing his attitude I a slightly leaning-forward position, in order fabrication tends to hold it in his gaze, brings back an instantaneous aspect of the imagefind completion.
Indeed, where ''imagos'' are concerned -- whose veiled faces it is our privilege to see in [[outline]] in our daily experience and the penumbra of symbolic efficacity<ref>Cf. Claude Lévi-[[Strauss]], ''[[Structural]] [[Anthropology]]'', [[London]] [[1968]], Chapter X.</ref> -- the mirror-image would seem to be the threshold of the [[visible]] world, if we go by the mirror disposition which the ''imago of our own body'' presents in [[hallucinations]] or [[dreams]], whether it concerns its individual features, or even its infirmities, or its [[object]]-projections; or if we notice the [[role]] of the mirror [[apparatus]] in the appearances of the ''[[double]]'', in which [[psychic]] realities, however heterogeneous, [[manifest]] themselves.
For meThat a ''Gestalt'' should be capable of formative effects in the organism is attested by a piece of [[biological]] experimentation which is itself so [[alien]] to the [[idea]] of psychic [[causality]] that it cannot bring itself to formulate its results in these [[terms]]. It nevertheless recognizes that it is a necessary condition for the maturation of the gonad of the [[female]] pigeon that it should see [[another]] member of its species, of either sex; so sufficient in itself is this activity retains condition that the desired effect may be obtained merely by placing the individual within reach of the field of [[reflection]] of a mirror. Similarly, in the [[case]] of the meaning I have given it up migratory locust, the transition within a generation from the solitary to the age gregarious form can be obtained by the exposure of eighteen months. This meaning discloses the individual, at a libidinal dynamismcertain stage, which has hitherto remained problematicto the exclusively [[visual]] [[action]] of a similar image, as well as provided it is animated by movements of a style sufficiently close to that characteristic of the species. Such facts are inscribed in an ontological structure order of homeomorphic identification which would itself fall within the larger question of the human world that accords with my reflections on paranoiac knowledgemeaning of beauty as formative and [[erotogenic]].
But facts of mimicry are no less instructive when conceived as cases of heteromorphic identification, inasmuch as they raise the problem of the [[significance]] of [[space]] for the [[living]] organism; [[psychological]] [[concepts]] hardly seem less appropriate for shedding light on these matters than ridiculous attempts to reduce [[them]] to the supposedly supreme law of [[adaptation]]. Let us only [[recall]] how Roger [[Caillois]] (who was then very young, and still fresh from his breach with the sociological [[school]] of his [[training]]) illuminated the subject by using the term '<i>legendary psychasthenia</i>' to classify morphological mimicry as an [[obsession]] with space in its derealizing effect.
We have only to understand ourselves shown in the mirror stage social dialectic which [[structures]] human knowledge as paranoiac<iref>as an identificationSee Jacques Lacan, ''Écrits, [[Paris]] 1966'', pp. 111, 180.</iref>why human knowledge has greater [[autonomy]] than [[animal]] knowledge in relation to the field of force of [[desire]], but also why it is determined in the full sense direction of that analysis gives '[[lack]] of reality' which [[surrealist]] [[dissatisfaction]] denounces in it. These reflections lead us to recognize in the term: namelyspatial ensnarement exhibited in the mirror-phase, even before the social dialectic, the transformation that takes place effect in the subject when he assumes man of an image [[organic]] insufficiency in his [[natural]] reality - whose predestination to this phase-effect in so far, that is sufficiently indicated by the use, in analytic theory, of as we attach any meaning to the ancient term <i>imago</i> [this is also a term from Jungian psychology[word]] '[[nature]]'.
We are therefore led to [[regard]] the function of the mirror-phase as a [[particular]] case of the function of the ''imago'', which is to establish a relation of the organism to its reality -- or, as they say, of the ''Innenwelt'' to the ''[[Umwelt]]''.
This jubilant assumption of his specular image by the child at the <i>infans</i>stageIn man, still sunk in his motor incapacity and nursling dependencehowever, would seem this relation to exhibit in an exemplary situation nature is impaired by a kind of dehiscence of the symbolic matrix organism in which the <i>I</i> is precipitated in womb, a primordial form, before it is objectified in Discord betrayed by the [[signs]] of discomfort and motor inco-ordination of the neonatal months. The [[objective]] [[notion]] of the dialectic [[anatomical]] [[incompleteness]] of identification with the other, pyramidal [[system]] and before language restores to it, in likewise the [[presence]] of certain humoral residues of the [[maternal]] organism confirm the universal, its function view we have formulated as subjectthe fact of a [[real]] ''specific [[prematurity]] of [[birth]]'' in man.
Let us note, incidentally, that this is a fact fully recognized by embryologists, by the term ''foetalization'', which determines the prevalence of the so-called superior apparatus of the neurax, and especially of the cortex, which [[psycho]]-surgical operations lead us to regard as the intra-organic mirror.
This form would have to be called development is lived as a [[temporal]] dialectic which decisively projects the formation of the individual into [[history]]; the Ideal''mirror-I phase'' is a drama whose [[internal]] impulse rushes from insufficiency to [. . .[anticipation]]. But and which manufactures for the important point is that this form situates subject, captive to the agency [[lure]] of spatial identification, the ego, before succession of phantasies from a [[fragmented body]]-image to a form of its social determination[[totality]] which we shall call orthopaedic -and to the assumption, in a fictional directionfinally, which will always remain irreducible for of the individual alone, or ratherarmour of an alienating [[identity]], which will only rejoin stamp with the rigidity of its structure the coming-into-being [[whole]] of the subject asymptotically's mental development. Thus, whatever to break out of the circle of the ''Innenwelt'' into the ''Umwelt'' generates the endless quadrature of the success inventorying of the dialectical syntheses by which he must resolve as <i>I</i> his discordance with his own realityego.
==The fact is that the total form of the body by which the subject anticipates in a mirage the maturation of his power is given to him only as <i>Gestalt</i> [an image of a whole], that is to say, in an exteriority in which this form is certainly more constituent than constituted, but in which it appears to him above all in a contrasting size that fixes it and in a symmetry that inverts it, in contrast with the turbulent movements that the subject feels are animating him. Thus, this <i>Gestalt</i> -- whose pregnancy should be regarded as bound up with the species, though its motor style remains scarcely recognizable - by these two aspects of its appearance, symbolizes the mental permanence of the <i>I</i>, at the same time as it prefigures its alienating destination; it is still pregnant with the correspondences that unite the <i>I</i> with the statue in which man projects himself, with the phantoms that dominate him, or with the automation in which, in an ambiguous relation, the world of his own making tends to find completion. Fragmented Body==
This fragmented body, the term for which I have introduced into our [[theoretical]] [[frame]] of reference, regularly manifests itself in dreams when the movement of the analysis encounters a certain level of [[aggressive]] disintegration in the individual. It then appears in the form of disjointed limbs, or of those organs figured in exoscopy, growing wings and taking up arms for intestinal persecutions -- the very same that the visionary Hieronymus Bosch has fixed, for all time, in painting, as they climbed, in the fifteenth century, to the [[imaginary]] zenith of modern man, but this form is even tangibly revealed at the organic level, in the lines of 'fragilization' which define the anatomy of [[phantasy]], as exhibited in the schizoid and spasmodic [[symptoms]] of [[hysteria]].
Correlatively, the formation of the ''I'' is [. . . T[symbolized]]he mirrorin dreams by a fortress, or a stadium -image would seem to be - its inner arena and enclosure, surrounded by marshes and rubbish-tips, dividing it into two opposed fields of contest where the threshold subject flounders in quest of the visible worldhaughty and remote inner castle, if we go by which, in its shape (sometimes juxtaposed in the mirror disposition that same scenario), symbolizes the <i>imago of one's own body</i> presents 'id'' in hallucinations or dreams [startling fashion. . .] or if Similarly, on the mental plane, we observe find realized the role structures of fortified works, the mirror apparatus in the appearances [[metaphor]] of which arises spontaneously, and as if issuing from the <i>double</i>symptoms themselves, in which to describe the psychical realitiesmechanisms of [[obsessional]] [[neurosis]] -- [[inversion]], [[isolation]], however heterogeneousreduplication, are manifestedcancellation and [[displacement]].
But were we to build on this merely [[subjective]] data, and should this be detached from the experiential condition which would make us derive it from a language [[technique]], our theoretical enterprise would remain exposed to the charge of projecting itself into the unthinkable of an absolute subject. That is why we have to find in the [[present]] hypothesis, grounded in a conjunction of objective data, the guiding grid for a ''method of symbolic reduction''.
That a <i>Gestalt</i> should be capable of formative effects It establishes in the organism is attested by a piece ''defences of biological experimentation that is itself so alien to the idea of psychical causality that it cannot bring itself to formulate its results in these terms. It nevertheless recognizes that it is ego'' a necessary condition for the maturation of the gonad of the female pigeon that it should see another member of its speciesgenetic order, of either sex: so sufficient in itself is this condition that accordance with the desired effect may be obtained merely [[wish]] formulated by placing the individual Miss [[pigeonAnna Freud]] within reach of the field of reflection of a mirror. Similarly, in the case first part of the migratory locusther great [[work]], the transition within and situates (as against a generation from the solitary to the gregarious form can be obtained by exposing the individual, frequently expressed prejudice) [[hysterical]] [[repression]] and its returns at a certain more archaic stagethan obsessional inversion and its isolating [[processes]], and the latter in turn as preliminary to the exclusively visual action of a similar imageparanoiac [[alienation]], provided it is animated by movements of a style sufficiently close to that characteristic of which dates from the species. Such facts are inscribed in an order deflection of homeomorphic identification that would itself fall within the larger question of mirror ''I'' into the meaning of beauty as both formative and erogenicsocial ''I''.
This moment in which the mirror-phase comes to an end inaugurates, by the identification with the ''imago'' of the fellow and the drama of primordial [[jealousy]] (so well high-lighted by the school of Charlotte Bühler in the phenomenon of [[infantile]] ''[[transitivism]]''), the dialectic which will henceforth link the I to socially elaborated situations.
But It is this moment that decisively shakes the fact whole of mimicry are no less instructive when conceived as cases human knowledge in the mediatization by the desire of heteromorphic identificationthe other, constitutes its [[objects]] in as much as they raise an abstract equivalence by virtue of the problem competition of the signification of space other, and makes the ''I'' into that system for which every [[instinctual]] thrust constitutes a [[danger]], even though it should correspond to a natural maturation -- the living organism very normalization of this maturation [[being]] henceforth dependent, in man, on a [[cultural]] go- psychological concepts hardly seem less appropriate for shedding light on these matters than ridiculous attempts to reduce them to between, as exemplified, in the supposedly supreme law case of adaptation. the [[sexual]] object, by the [[Oedipus]] complex. . .]
In the light of this conception, the term primary [[narcissism]], by which analytical [[doctrine]] denotes the libidinal investment characteristic of that moment, reveals in those who invented it the most profound [[awareness]] of semantic latencies. But it also illuminates the [[dynamic]] opposition of that [[libido]] to sexual libido, which they tried to define when they invoked destructive and, indeed, [[death]] [[instincts]], in order to explain the evident connection between [[narcissistic]] libido and the alienating function of the ''I'', the [[aggressiveness]] which it releases in any relation to the other, albeit that of the most Samaritan aid.
I am led, therefore, to regard the function of the mirror-stage as a particular case of the function of the <i>imago</i>, which is to establish a relation between the organism and its reality - or, as they say, between the <i>Innenwelt</i> [interior world] and the <i>Umwelt</i> [exterior world]. ==Existentialism==
They were encountering that existential negativity whose reality is so warmly advocated by the contemporary philosophy of being and nothingness.
In man, however, this relation to nature is altered by a certain dehiscence at But unfortunately that philosophy grasps negativity only within the heart confines of the organism, a primordial Discord betrayed by the signs of uneasiness and motor uncoordination of the neo[[self]]-natal months. The objective notion sufficiency of the anatomical incompleteness [[consciousness]], which, as one of humansits premisses, [[ and likewise links]] to the presence of certain humoral residues constitutive mis-recognitions of the maternal organism confirm ego, the view I have formulated as the fact [[illusion]] of a real <i>specific prematurity autonomy to which it entrusts itself. This flight of birth</i> fancy, for all that it draws, to an unusual extent, on borrowings from psychoanalytic experience, culminates in manthe pretension to provide an [[existential psychoanalysis]].
It is worth notingAt the climax of the historical attempt of a [[society]] to refuse to recognize that it has any function other than the utilitarian one, incidentallyand in the anguish of the individual confronting the concentrational form of the social bond which seems to arise to crown this attempt, that this [[existentialism]] must be judged by the account it gives of the subjective dilemmas which it has indeed given rise to: the [[freedom]] which never claims more authenticity than when it is within the walls of a prison; the [[demand]] for commitment, expressing the [[impotence]] of a pure consciousness to [[master]] any situation; the voyeuristic-[[sadistic]] [[idealization]] of the sexual [[relationship]]; the [[personality]] which realizes itself only in fact recognized as such [[suicide]]; the awareness of the other which can be [[satisfied]] only by embryologists, by the term <i>foetalization</i> [[Hegelian]] [[murder]]. . . . ]
This development is experienced These propositions are denied by all our experience, inasmuch as it teaches us not to regard the ego as a temporal dialectic that decisively projects centred on the formation of ''[[perception]]-consciousness system'', or as organized by the individual into history. The <i>mirror stage</i> is 'reality [[principle]]' -- a drama whose internal thrust principle which is precipitated from insufficiency to anticipation - and which manufactures for the subject, caught up in the lure expression of spatial identification, a scientistic prejudice most hostile to the succession dialectic of phantasies knowledge. Our experience shows that extends we should start instead from a fragmented body-image to a form the ''function of [[misrecognition]]'' which characterizes the ego in all its totality that I shall call orthopaedic - andstructures, lastlyso markedly articulated by Miss Anna Freud. For, to if the assumption of ''[[Verneinung]]'' represents the armour patent form of an alienating identitythat function, which its effects will mark with its rigid structure , for the subject's entire mental development. Thusmost part, remain [[latent]], to break out of so long as they are not illuminated by a light reflected in the circle plane of fatality, where the <i>Innenwelt</i> into the <i>Umwelt</i> generates the inexhaustible quadrature of the ego's verifications'id'' is revealed.
This fragmented body - which terms I have also introduced into our system of theoretical references - usually manifests itself in dreams when We can thus understand the movement inertia characteristic of the analysis encounters a certain level [[formations]] of aggressive disintegration in the individual. It then appears in ''I'', and find there the form most extensive definition of disjointed limbs, or neurosis -- even as the ensnarement of those organs represented in exoscopy, growing wings and taking up arms for intestinal persecutions - the very same that subject by the situation which gives us the visionary Hieronymus Bosch has fixed, most general [[formula]] for all time[[madness]], in painting, in their ascent (p. 5) from not only the fifteenth century to madness which lies behind the imaginary zenith walls of modern man. But this form is even tangibly revealed at the organic levelasylums, in but also the lines of 'fragilization' that define madness which deafens the anatomy of phantasy, as exhibited in the schizoid world with its sound and spasmodic symptoms of hysteriafury.
Correlatively, the formation The sufferings of neurosis and [[psychosis]] are for us the <i>I</i> is symbolized in dreams by a fortress, or a stadium - its inner arena and enclosure, surrounded by marshes and rubbish-tips, dividing it into two opposed fields school of contest where the subject flounders in quest passions of the leftysoul, remote inner castle whose form (sometimes juxtaposed in just as the same scenario) symbolizes scourge of the id in a quite startling way. Similarly, on the mental planepsychoanalytic scales, when we find realized compute the structures tilt of fortified workstheir [[threat]] to entire communities, gives us the metaphor [[index]] of which arises spontaneously, as if issuing from the symptoms themselves, to designate deadening of the mechanisms passions of obsessional neurosis - inversion, isolation, reduplication, cancellation and displacementthe city.
At this junction of nature and [[culture]] which is so persistently scanned by modern anthropology, psychoanalysis alone recognizes this [[knot]] of imaginary servitude which [[love]] must always undo again, or sever.
But if For such a task we were to build place no reliance on these subjective givens alone - however little altruistic [[feeling]], we free them from who lay bare the condition of experience aggressiveness that makes us see them as partaking of underlies the nature activity of a linguistic technique - our theoretical attempts would remain exposed to the charge of projecting themselves into philanthropist, the unthinkable of an absolute subject. This is why I have sought in idealist, the present hypothesis, grounded in a conjunction of objective datapedagogue, and even the guiding grid for a method of symbolic reductionreformer.
In the recourse of subject to subject which we preserve, psychoanalysis can accompany the [[patient]] to the ecstatic [[limit]] of the 'Thou art that', wherein is revealed to him the cipher of his mortal destiny, but it is not in our mere power as practitioners to bring him to that point where the real journey begins.
It establishes in the defenses of the ego a genetic order [. . . ] and situates (as against a frequently expressed prejudice1949 -- ''translated'' by Jean Roussel) hysterical repression and its returns at a more archaic stage than obsessional inversion and its isolating processes, and the latter in turn as preliminary to paranoiac alienation, which dates from the deflection of the specular I into the social I.
==Notes==
<references/>
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This moment in which the mirror stage comes to an end inaugurates by the identification with the imago of the counterpart and the drama of primordial jealousy (so well brought out by the school of Charlotte Bühler in the phenomenon of infantile transitivism), the dialectic that will henceforth link the I to socially elaborated situations. It is this moment that decisively tips the whole of human knowledge into mediatization through the desire of the other, constitutes its objects in an abstract equivalence by the co-operation of others, and turns the I into that apparatus for which every instinctual thrust constitutes a danger, even though it should correspond to a natural maturation - the very normalization of this maturation being henceforth dependent, in man, on a cultural mediation as exemplified, in the case of the sexual object, by the Oedipus complex. ==See Also==* [[Le stade du miroir comme formateur de la fonction du Je]]* [[. . .Mirror stage]] We can thus understand the inertia characteristic of the formations of the I, and find there the most extensive definition of neurosis - just as the captation of the subject by the situation gives us the most general formula for madness, not only the madness that lies behind the walls of asylums, but also the madness that deafens the world with its sound and fury. The sufferings of neurosis and psychosis are for us a schooling in the passions of the soul, just as the beam of the psychoanalytic scales, when we calculate the tilt of its threat to entire communities, provides us with an indication of the deadening of the passions in society. At this junction of nature and culture, so persistently examined by modern anthropology, psychoanalysis alone recognizes this knot of imaginary servitude that love must always undo again, or sever. For such a task, we place no trust in altruistic feeling, we who lay bare the aggressivity that underlies the activity of the philanthropist, the idealist, the pedagogue, and even the reformer. In the recourse of subject to subject that we preserver, psychoanalysis may accompany the patient to the ecstatic limit of the "Thous art that." in which is revealed to him the cipher of his mortal destiny, but it is not in our mere power as practitioners to bring him to that point where the real journey beings.
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* "[[Le stade du miroir comme formateur de la fonction du je, telle qu’elle nous est révélée, dans l’expérience psychanalytique]]." ''[[Écrits]]''. Paris: Seuil, 1966: 93-100 ["[[The mirror stage as formative of the function of the I as revealed in psychoanalytic experience]]." Trans. [[Alan Sheridan]]. ''[[Écrits: A Selection]]''. London: Tavistock, 1977; New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1977: 1-7].
