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As an adjective, the term <i>visual</i> designates what is perceptible in the field that presents itself to the eye. As a noun, <i>the visual</i> involves the way in which the [[psychical ]] [[apparatus ]] organizes this perceptual data.As early as his study on [[aphasia ]] (1891b), [[Freud ]] emphasized the importance of the visual in the [[representation ]] of things in [[order ]] to [[understand ]] its complicated [[relationship ]] with representation by [[words]]. In <i>The [[Interpretation ]] of [[Dreams]]</i> (1900a), he both provided an [[optical ]] [[model ]] for the [[psychical apparatus ]] and also noted that the [[dream ]] [[material]], as well as that of [[memory ]] traces, are most often presented visually. Thus, modes of representation must fulfill requirements of visual representations. The subsequent [[recognition ]] of visual component [[drives ]] provided Freud with the opportunity to verify that their vicissitudes are not homologous to those of the [[other ]] drives. Finally, in <i>[[Moses ]] and [[Monotheism]]</i> (1939a), he insisted that it was necessary to set aside visual stimuli, especially those caused by the [[maternal ]] [[body]], in order to [[name ]] the [[father]]. He connected this "advance in intellectuality" (1939a, p. 111) to the impact of [[monotheistic ]] [[religion ]] on [[mental ]] [[life]], especially when it prohibits representations.In Freud's [[work]], the visual shows the privileged connection between the [[sexual ]] and the sensorial. Jacques [[Lacan ]] discussed this in his article on the "[[Mirror ]] [[Stage]]" (1949), where he expanded Freud's observations of the visual [[dimension ]] of [[narcissism]]. Lacan stressed the importance of the mirror [[image ]] for the [[infant ]] held up to the mirror by its [[mother]]. When the [[baby ]] recognizes itself in the mirror, it achieves an [[identity ]] by assuming the [[mirror image]]. But this is also a trap, because once the [[subject ]] is [[captured]], he confuses himself with the mirror image and thus becomes [[alienated ]] by a visual definition of [[self]]. He is caught in the succession of [[images]].In a study relating [[psychotic ]] [[discourse ]] to the [[mirror stage]], Piera Aulagnier proposed that in the [[psyche]]'s [[primal ]] [[activity ]] of visual representation its invested [[object ]] should be called a <i>pictogram.</i> In doing so, she emphasized the prevalence of the visual in [[unconscious ]] representations.It is worthwhile to make [[another ]] [[distinction ]] between the [[visible ]] image and the visual image. [[Vision ]] exhausts only the empirical [[reality ]] of a phenomenon, which can become a [[psychic ]] representation, that is, a visual image, only by passing through the primary and secondary [[processes]]. The [[difference ]] between what is visible and the <i>visual</i> of the image explains how dream images are never confused with things seen by the dreamer. Because it is incongruous with the [[desire ]] to see, the visual image assures the perpetual thrust of the [[scopic ]] [[drive]]. The [[impossibility ]] of reducing the visual to the visible prevents the image from showing the [[object of desire ]] and orients vision towards another image. If we grant Freud's assertion that the desire to see is related to [[seeing ]] the [[genital ]] organs, the [[notion ]] of the visual allows us to specify what is involved in the attempt to see, namely the [[female ]] genitalia that eludes [[sight]]. The only way to [[represent ]] it is by the visual image, which is a [[fetish ]] that only exposes its unreal opposite, the maternal [[penis]].Why is the visual the predominant [[sense]]? This question can be answered by considering that the visual is overdetermined because there is no penis on the female body. When the [[child ]] fails to see a penis on a female body, his single sex wavers and he begins to [[think ]] that there is another sex, which [[exists ]] even though it is "invisible." Other elements of the visual deserve further attention. For example, the central [[role ]] that [[psychoanalysis ]] grants the visual is justified by the fact that there must be a visual reference, a [[virtual ]] psychical mirror (certain moments in the [[treatment]]) or a visual [[fantasy]]. The determining function of the visual might be related to the [[timelessness ]] of the unconscious, because only the visual is in a [[position ]] to prevent the representation of the fantasy from [[being ]] eternalized.

# Aulagnier, Piera. (1975). La [[violence ]] de l 'interprétation. Du pictogrammeà l'énoncé. [[Paris]]: Presses Universitaires de [[France]].# [[Freud, Sigmund]]. (1900a). The [[interpretation of dreams]]. SE, 4-5: 1-751.# ——. (1939a [1934-38]). Moses and monotheism: [[Three ]] essays. SE, 23: 1-137.# [[Lacan, Jacques]]. (2002). [[The mirror stage ]] as formative of the I function as revealed in [[psychoanalytic ]] [[experience]]. In [[Écrits]]: A selection ([[Bruce Fink]], Trans.). New York: W. W. Norton. (Original work published 1949)