Changes

The conception Some of the mirror stage that I introduced you may perhaps [[. . .remember]] has since become more or less established our starting point in the practice a feature of [[human]] [[behaviour]] illuminated by a fact of the French comparative [[psychoanalyticpsychology]] group. HoweverThe human offspring, I think it worthwhile to bring it again to your attentionat an age when he is for a [[time]], especially todayhowever short, for outdone by the light it sheds on chimpanzee in instrumental intelligence, can nevertheless already recognize as such his own [[image]] in a mirror. This [[recognition]] manifests itself in the formation illuminatory [[mimicry]] of the <i>I</i> ''AhaErlebnis'', which Köhler sees as we experience it in psychoanalysis. It is the expression of situational apperception, an experience that leads us to oppose any philosophy directly issuing from the <i>Cogito</i> essential [[reference is to moment]] of the tradition stemming from Descartes : I think, therefore I am etcact of intelligence.]

Some 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 you may recall that this conception originated gestures in a feature which he playfully experiences the relations of the assumed movements of human behavior illuminated by a fact the image to the reflected [[environment]], and of comparative psychology. The this [[virtual]] [[complex]] to the [[reality]] it reduplicates the child's own [[body]], at an age when he is for a time, however short, outdone by and the chimpanzee persons or even things in instrumental intelligence, can nevertheless already recognize as such his own image in a mirror. [. . proximity.]

This act[[event]] can take [[place]], as we have known since Baldwin, far from exhausting itself, as in the case age of the monkeysix months, once the image and its [[repetition]] has been mastered and found empty, immediately rebounds in often compelled us to ponder over the case startling [[spectacle]] of the child nurseling in a series front of gestures the mirror. Unable as yet to walk, or even to stand up, and narrowly confined as he is within some support, human or artificial (what, in which [[France]], we call a ''trotte-bébé''), he experiences nevertheless surmounts, in play a flutter of jubilant [[activity]], the relation between the movements assumed obstructions of his support in [[order]] to fix his attitude in the image and the reflected environmenta more or less leaning-forward [[position]], and between this virtual complex and bring back an instantaneous aspect of the reality image to hold it reduplicates --the child's own body, and the persons and things around himin his [[gaze]].

This event can take place For us, this activity retains the [[. . .meaning]] from we have given it up to the age of six eighteen months. This meaning discloses a [[libidinal]] dynamism, and its repetition which has often made me reflect upon the startling spectacle of the infant in front of the mirror. Unable hitherto remained problematic, as yet to walk, or even to stand up, and held tightly well as he is by some support, human or artificial an [[ontological]] [[. . .structure]], he nevertheless overcomes, in a flutter of jubilant activity, the obstructions of his support and, fixing his attitude I a slightly leaning-forward position, in order to hold it in his gaze, brings back an instantaneous aspect of the imagehuman [[world]] which accords with our reflections on [[paranoiac]] [[knowledge]].

For meWe have only to [[understand]] the mirror-phase ''as an [[identification]]'', this activity retains in the meaning I have given it up [[full]] sense which [[analysis]] gives to the age of eighteen months. This meaning discloses a libidinal dynamismterm: namely, the transformation which has hitherto remained problematictakes place in the [[subject]] when he assumes an image -whose [[predestination]] to this phase-effect is sufficiently indicated by the use, in analytical [[theory]], as well as an ontological structure of the human world that accords with my reflections on paranoiac knowledgeold term ''[[imago]]''.

We have only to understand This jubilant assumption of his mirror-image by the little man, at the mirror ''[[infans]]'' [[stage <i>as an identification</i>]], still sunk in his motor incapacity and nurseling dependency, would seem to exhibit in an exemplary [[situation]] the full sense that analysis gives to [[symbolic]] [[matrix]] in which the term: namelyI is precipitated in a primordial [[form]], before it is objectified in the transformation that takes place in [[dialectic]] of identification with the subject when he assumes an image - whose predestination [[other]], and before [[language]] restores to this phase-effect is sufficiently indicated by the useit, in analytic theory, of the ancient term <i>imago</i> [this is also a term from Jungian psychology[universal]], its function as subject.

This jubilant assumption of his specular image by form would have to be called the child at ''[[Ideal]]-I''<ref>Throughout this article we leave in its peculiarity the [[translation]] we have adopted for [[Freud]]'s <i>infansIdeal-Ich</i>stage, still sunk in his motor incapacity and nursling dependence, would seem to exhibit in an exemplary situation the symbolic matrix in which the (i.e. '<i>Ije-idéal</i> is precipitated in '), without further comment, save that we have not maintained it since.</ref>, if we wanted to restore it to a primordial formfamiliar scheme, before in the sense that it will also be the root-stock for secondary identifications, among which we place the functions of libidinal normalization. But the important point is objectified in that this form situates the dialectic [[instance]] of identification with the other''ego'', and before language restores to itits [[social]] determination, in a fictional direction, which will always remain irreducible for the universal[[individual]] alone, or rather, its function which will rejoin the [[development]] of the subject only asymptotically, whatever the success of the [[dialectical]] syntheses by which he must resolve as subject''I'' his discordance with his own reality.

This form would have to be called the Ideal-I [. . .]. But the important point is that this form situates the agency of the ego, before its social determination, in a fictional direction, which will always remain irreducible for the individual alone, or rather, which will only rejoin the coming-into-being of the subject asymptotically, whatever the success of the dialectical syntheses by which he must resolve ==The Body as <i>I</i> his discordance with his own reality. Gestalt==

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, which are in contrast [[conflict]] with the turbulent movements that turbulence of the motions which the subject feels are animating him. Thus, this <i>''Gestalt</i> '' -- whose pregnancy should be regarded as bound up with linked to the [[species]], though its motor style remains scarcely recognizable unrecognizable -- by these two twin 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 which unite the <i>''I</i> '' with the statue in which man projects himself, with the phantoms that which dominate him, or finally, with the automation [[automaton]] in which, in an ambiguous relation, the world of his own making fabrication tends to find 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. . T]he </ref> -- the mirror-image would seem to be the threshold of the [[visible ]] world, if we go by the mirror disposition that which the <i>''imago of one's our own body</i> '' presents in [[hallucinations ]] or [[dreams ]], whether it concerns its individual features, or even its infirmities, or its [. . .[object]] -projections; or if we observe notice the [[role ]] of the mirror [[apparatus ]] in the appearances of the <i>''[[double</i>]]'', in which the psychical [[psychic]] realities, however heterogeneous, are manifested[[manifest]] themselves.

That a <i>''Gestalt</i> '' should be capable of formative effects in the organism is attested by a piece of [[biological ]] experimentation that which is itself so [[alien ]] to the [[idea ]] of psychical 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 condition that the desired effect may be obtained merely by placing the individual [pigeon] within reach of the field of [[reflection ]] of a mirror. Similarly, in the [[case ]] of the migratory locust, the transition within a generation from the solitary to the gregarious form can be obtained by exposing the exposure of the individual, at a certain stage, to the exclusively [[visual ]] [[action ]] of a similar image, provided it is animated by movements of a style sufficiently close to that characteristic of the species. Such facts are inscribed in an order of homeomorphic identification that which would itself fall within the larger question of the meaning of beauty as both formative and erogenic[[erotogenic]].

But We have ourselves shown in the fact social dialectic which [[structures]] human knowledge as paranoiac<ref>See Jacques Lacan, ''Écrits, [[Paris]] 1966'', pp. 111, 180.</ref> why human knowledge has greater [[autonomy]] than [[animal]] knowledge in relation to the field of mimicry are no less instructive when conceived as cases force of heteromorphic identification[[desire]], but also why it is determined in as much as they raise the problem direction of that '[[lack]] of reality' which [[surrealist]] [[dissatisfaction]] denounces in it. These reflections lead us to recognize in the spatial ensnarement exhibited in the mirror-phase, even before the social dialectic, the signification effect in man of space for the living organism an [[organic]] insufficiency in his [[natural]] reality -- psychological concepts hardly seem less appropriate for shedding light on these matters than ridiculous attempts to reduce them in so far, that is, as we attach any meaning to the supposedly supreme law of adaptation. [[word]] '[[nature]]'. . .]

I am ledIn man, thereforehowever, this relation to regard the function nature is impaired by a kind of the mirror-stage as a particular case dehiscence of the function of organism in the <i>imago</i>womb, which is to establish a relation between primordial Discord betrayed by the organism [[signs]] of discomfort and its reality motor inco- or, as they say, between ordination of the neonatal months. The [[objective]] [[notion]] of the [[anatomical]] [[incompleteness]] of the <i>Innenwelt</i> pyramidal [[interior worldsystem]] and likewise the [[presence]] of certain humoral residues of the [[maternal]] organism confirm the <i>Umwelt</i> view we have formulated as the fact of a [[real]] ''specific [exterior world[prematurity]] of [[birth]]'' in man.

In manLet us note, howeverincidentally, that this relation to nature is altered a fact fully recognized by embryologists, by a certain dehiscence at the heart of the organismterm ''foetalization'', a primordial Discord betrayed by which determines the signs of uneasiness and motor uncoordination prevalence of the neoso-natal months. The objective notion called superior apparatus of the anatomical incompleteness [of humans[ neurax, and likewise the presence of certain humoral residues especially of the maternal organism confirm the view I have formulated cortex, which [[psycho]]-surgical operations lead us to regard as the fact of a real <i>specific prematurity of birth</i> in manintra-organic mirror.

It This development is worth notinglived as a [[temporal]] dialectic which decisively projects the formation of the individual into [[history]]; the ''mirror-phase'' is a drama whose [[internal]] impulse rushes from insufficiency to [[anticipation]] and which manufactures for the subject, incidentallycaptive to the [[lure]] of spatial identification, that this is in fact recognized as such by embryologiststhe succession of phantasies from a [[fragmented body]]-image to a form of its [[totality]] which we shall call orthopaedic -and to the assumption, finally, of the armour of an alienating [[identity]], by which will stamp with the rigidity of its structure the term <i>foetalization</i> [[whole]] of the subject's mental development. Thus, to break out of the circle of the ''Innenwelt'' into the ''Umwelt'' generates the endless quadrature of the inventorying of the ego. . . ]

This development is experienced as a temporal dialectic that decisively projects the formation of the individual into history. ==The <i>mirror stage</i> is a drama whose internal thrust is precipitated from insufficiency to anticipation - and which manufactures for the subject, caught up in the lure of spatial identification, the succession of phantasies that extends from a fragmented body-image to a form of its totality that I shall call orthopaedic - and, lastly, to the assumption of the armour of an alienating identity, which will mark with its rigid structure the subject's entire mental development. Thus, to break out of the circle of the <i>Innenwelt</i> into the <i>Umwelt</i> generates the inexhaustible quadrature of the ego's verifications. Fragmented Body==

This fragmented body - , the term for which terms I have also introduced into our system [[theoretical]] [[frame]] of theoretical references - usually 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 represented 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 their ascent (p. 5) from the fifteenth century , to the [[imaginary ]] zenith of modern man. But , but this form is even tangibly revealed at the organic level, in the lines of 'fragilization' that which define the anatomy of [[phantasy]], as exhibited in the schizoid and spasmodic [[symptoms ]] of [[hysteria]].

Correlatively, the formation of 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 of contest where the subject flounders in quest of the lefty, haughty and remote inner castle whose form , which, in its shape (sometimes juxtaposed in the same scenario) , symbolizes the ''id '' in a quite startling wayfashion. Similarly, on the mental plane, we find realized the structures of fortified works, the [[metaphor ]] of which arises spontaneously, and as if issuing from the symptoms themselves, to designate describe the mechanisms of [[obsessional ]] [[neurosis ]] -- [[inversion]], [[isolation]], reduplication, cancellation and [[displacement]].

But if were we were to build on these this merely [[subjective givens alone - however little we free them ]] data, and should this be detached from the experiential condition of experience that makes which would make us see them as partaking of the nature of derive it from a linguistic language [[technique - ]], our theoretical attempts enterprise would remain exposed to the charge of projecting themselves itself into the unthinkable of an absolute subject. This That is why I we have sought to find in the [[present ]] hypothesis, grounded in a conjunction of objective data, the guiding grid for a ''method of symbolic reduction''.

It establishes in the defenses ''defences of the ego '' a genetic order , in accordance with the [. . . [wish]] formulated by Miss [[Anna Freud]], in the first part of her great [[work]] , and situates (as against a frequently expressed prejudice) [[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 mirror ''I '' into the social ''I''.

This It is this moment that decisively shakes the whole of human knowledge in which the mirror stage comes to mediatization by the desire of the other, constitutes its [[objects]] in an end inaugurates abstract equivalence by virtue of the identification with the imago competition of the counterpart other, and makes the drama of primordial jealousy (so well brought out by ''I'' into that system for which every [[instinctual]] thrust constitutes a [[danger]], even though it should correspond to a natural maturation -- the school very normalization of Charlotte Bühler this maturation [[being]] henceforth dependent, in man, on a [[cultural]] go-between, as exemplified, in the phenomenon case of infantile transitivism)the [[sexual]] object, by the dialectic that will henceforth link the I to socially elaborated situations[[Oedipus]] complex.

It is In the light of this moment that decisively tips conception, the whole of human knowledge into mediatization through term primary [[narcissism]], by which analytical [[doctrine]] denotes the desire libidinal investment characteristic of the otherthat moment, constitutes its objects reveals in an abstract equivalence by those who invented it the co-operation most profound [[awareness]] of others, and turns semantic latencies. But it also illuminates the I into [[dynamic]] opposition of that apparatus for [[libido]] to sexual libido, which every instinctual thrust constitutes a danger, even though it should correspond they tried to a natural maturation - the very normalization of this maturation being henceforth dependentdefine when they invoked destructive and, in manindeed, on a cultural mediation as exemplified[[death]] [[instincts]], in order to explain the evident connection between [[narcissistic]] libido and the case alienating function of the sexual object''I'', the [[aggressiveness]] which it releases in any relation to the other, by albeit that of the Oedipus complexmost Samaritan aid.

The sufferings They were encountering that existential negativity whose reality is so warmly advocated by the contemporary philosophy of neurosis being 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 societynothingness.

At this junction But unfortunately that philosophy grasps negativity only within the confines of a [[self]]-sufficiency of [[consciousness]], which, as one of nature and cultureits premisses, so persistently examined by modern anthropology[[links]] to the constitutive mis-recognitions of the ego, psychoanalysis alone recognizes this knot the [[illusion]] of autonomy to which it entrusts itself. This flight of imaginary servitude fancy, for all that love must always undo againit draws, to an unusual extent, or severon borrowings from psychoanalytic experience, culminates in the pretension to provide an [[existential psychoanalysis]].

For such At the climax of the historical attempt of a task[[society]] to refuse to recognize that it has any function other than the utilitarian one, we place no trust and in altruistic feelingthe anguish of the individual confronting the concentrational form of the social bond which seems to arise to crown this attempt, we who lay bare [[existentialism]] must be judged by the aggressivity that underlies 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 activity walls of a prison; the philanthropist[[demand]] for commitment, expressing the [[impotence]] of a pure consciousness to [[master]] any situation; the voyeuristic-[[sadistic]] [[idealization]] of the sexual [[relationship]]; the idealist, [[personality]] which realizes itself only in [[suicide]]; the pedagogue, and even awareness of the reformerother which can be [[satisfied]] only by [[Hegelian]] [[murder]].

These propositions are denied by all our experience, inasmuch as it teaches us not to regard the ego as centred on the ''[[perception]]-consciousness system'', or as organized by the 'reality [[principle]]' -- a principle which is the expression of a scientistic prejudice most hostile to the dialectic of knowledge. Our experience shows that we should start instead from the ''function of [[misrecognition]]'' which characterizes the ego in all its structures, so markedly articulated by Miss Anna Freud. For, if the ''[[Verneinung]]'' represents the patent form of that function, its effects will, for the most part, remain [[latent]], so long as they are not illuminated by a light reflected in the plane of fatality, where the ''id'' is revealed.  We can thus understand the inertia characteristic of the [[formations]] of the ''I'', and find there the most extensive definition of neurosis -- even as the ensnarement of the subject by the situation which gives us the most general [[formula]] for [[madness]], not only the madness which lies behind the walls of asylums, but also the madness which deafens the world with its sound and fury. The sufferings of neurosis and [[psychosis]] are for us the school of the passions of the soul, just as the scourge of the psychoanalytic scales, when we compute the tilt of their [[threat]] to entire communities, gives us the [[index]] of the deadening of the passions of the 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. For such a task we place no reliance on altruistic [[feeling]], we who lay bare the aggressiveness that underlies the activity of the philanthropist, the idealist, the pedagogue, and even the reformer. In the recourse of subject to subject that which we preserverpreserve, psychoanalysis may can accompany the [[patient ]] to the ecstatic [[limit ]] of the "Thous 'Thou art that." in which ', 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 beingsbegins. ( 1949 -- ''translated'' by Jean Roussel)  ==Notes==<references/>* [http://www.ny-liability-insurance.com/ Liability Insurance NY] ==See Also==* [[Le stade du miroir comme formateur de la fonction du Je]]* [[Mirror stage]] __NOEDITSECTION__

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