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==Jacques Lacan==
=====Father and Mother-Child=====
It is through the intervention of the [[Name-of-the-Father]] that the [[imaginary]] [[dual relation|unity]] between child and [[mother]] is [[broken]].
The [[Name-of-the-Father]] is a [[symbolic]] function that intrudes into the illusory world of the [[child]] and breaks the [[imaginary]] [[dual relation|dyad]] of the mother and [[child]].
=====Father's Phallus=====
The [[child]] assumes that the [[father]] is one that [[satisfies]] the [[mother]]'s [[desire]] and possesses the [[phallus]]. The [[father]] is assumed to possess something that the [[child]] [[lack]]]s and it is this that the [[mother]] [[desire]]s.
====="Symbolic" Father and "Actual" Father=====
It is important here though not to confuse the [[Name-of-the-Father]] with the actual [[father]]. (The [[Name-of-the-Father]] is a [[symbolic]] function that intrudes into the illusory world of the [[child]] and breaks the [[imaginary]] [[dual relation|dyad]] of the mother and [[child]]. )
PHALLIC SIGNIFIER
n this sense, argues Lacan, the Oedipus complex involves an element of substitution, that is to say, the substitution of one signifier, the desire of the mother, for another, the Name-of-the-Father. It is through this initial act of substitution that the process of signification begins and child enters the symbolic order as a subject of lack. It is also for this reason that Lacan describes the process of symbolization itself as 'phallic'. It is through the Name-of-the-Father that the phallus is installed as the central organizing signifier of the unconscious. The phallus is the 'original' lost object, but only insofar as no one possessed it in the first place. The phallus, therefore, is not like any other signifier, it is the signifier of absence and does not 'exist' in its own right as a thing, an object or a bodily organ.
==Castration==
[[Castration]] involves not just an [[anxiety]] about losing one's [[penis]] but simultaneously the recognition of ''[[lack]]'' or ''[[absence]]''. The [[child]] is concerned about losing its own [[penis]] and simultaneously recognizes that the [[mother does not have a [[penis]].
