Vil

\SS MQ
The topic of the imaginary
A MEDITATION ON OPTICS

INTRODUCTION OF THE INVERTED BOUQUET

REALITY: THE ORIGINAL CHAOS

IMAGINARY: BIRTH OF THE EGO

SYMBOLIC: FHE POSITIONS OF THE SUBJECT

FUNCTION OF THE MYTH OF OEDIPUS IN PSYCHOANALYSIS

The small talk I will offer you today was announced under the title ‘The topic of
several years of
the imaginary’, Such a subject is quite enough to fill up
teaching, but since severa! questions concerning the place of the imaginary in
the symbolic structure crop up while following the thread of our discourse,
today’s chat may justify its title.
It wasn’t without some preconceived plan, the rigour of which will, I hope,
become apparent as it is revealed in its entirety, that last time I brought your
attention to a case whose particular significance resides in its showing in
miniature the reciprocal interplay of those three grand terms we have already
had occasion to make much of — the imaginary, the symbolic, and the real.
Without these three systems to guide ourselves by, it would be impossible to
understand anything of the Freudian technique and experience. Many
difficulties are vindicated and clarified when one brings these distinctions to
bear on them. This is indeed the case with the incomprehensions Mlle Gélinier
remarked upon the other day when dealing with Melanie Klein’s text. What
matters, when one tries to elaborate upon some experience, isn't so much what
one understands, as what one doesn’t understand. The value of Mile Gélinier’s
report is precisely to have highlighted what, in this text, cannot be understood.
That is why the method of textual commentary proves itself fruitful.
Commenting on a text is like doing an analysis. How many times have | said to
those under my supervision, when they say tome -I had the impression he meant
this or that — that one of the things we must guard most against is to understand
too much, to understand more than what is in the discourse of the subject. To
interpret and to imagine one understands are not at all the same things. It is
precisely the opposite. 1 would go as far as to say that it is on the basis of a
kind of refusal of understanding that we push open the door to analytic
understanding.
It isn’t enough for it to seem to hang together, a text. Obviously, it hangs
together within the framework of pat phrases we've grown used to —

73
74 Freud's Papers on Technique 1953-1954 The topic of the imaginary 75

J
instinctual maturation, primitive aggressive instinct, oral, anal sadism, etc. Pcpt) Mnem = Mnem' Mnem” M
And yet. in the register that Melanie Klein brings into play, there appear several
contrasts, which Tam going to return to in detail.
Everything turns on what Mlle Gélinier found to be peculiar, paradoxical,
contradictory in the ego's function — if too developed, it stops all development,
butin developing. it reopens the door to reality. How is it that the gate to reality
is reopened by a development of the eyo? What is the specific function of the
Kleinian interpretation, which appears to have an intrusive character, a
superimposing upon the subject? These are the questions that we will have to
touch upon again today. Freud’s schema!

You should have realised by now that, in the case of this young subject, real,
imaginary and symbolic are here tangible, are flush with one another. I have Inside, Freud places the different layers which can be distinguished from the
taught you to identify the symbolic with language — now, isn’t it in so far as, level of perception, namely from the instantaneous impression — Mnem’',
say, Melanic Klein speaks, that something happens? On the other hand, when Mnem’, etc, both image and memory. These recorded traces are later repressed
Melanie Klein tells us that the objects are constituted by the interplay of into the unconscious. It is a very pretty schema, which we will come back to
projections, introjections, expulsions, reintrojections of bad objects, and that since it will be useful to us. But I'd like to point out that it is accompanied by a
the subject, having projected his sadism, sees it coming back from these objects, commentary which doesn’t appear to have ever attracted anyone's attention,
und, by this very fact, finds himself jammed up by an anxious fear, don’t you even though it was used again in another form in Freud's quasi last work, the
have the feeling that we are in the domain of the imaginary? Outline of Psycho-analysis.
From then on the whole problem is that of the juncture of the symbolic and of I will read it to you as it is to be found in the Trawmdeutung. What is presented to
the imaginary in the constitution of the real. us in these words is the idea of psychical locality — what is at issue here is precisely
the field of psychical reality, that is to say of everything which takes place
between perception and the motor consciousness of the ego. I shall entirely
disregard the fact that the mental apparatus with which we are here concerned is also
‘To clarify things a little for you, I've concocted a little model for you, a substitute known to us in the form of an anatomical preparation, and I shall carefully avoid the
for the mirror-stage. temptation to determine psychical locality in any anatomical fashion. I shall remain
As T have often underlined, the mirror-stage is not simply a moment in upon psychological ground, and I propose simply to follow the suggestion that we
development. It also has an exemplary function, because it reveals some of the should picture the instrument which carries out our mental functions as resembling a
subject's relations to his image, in so far as it is the Urbild of the ego. Now, this compound microscope or a photographic apparatus, or something of the kind. On that
mirror-stage, which no one can deny, has an optical presentation — nor can basis, psychical locality will correspond to a point inside the apparatus at which one of
anyone deny that. Is it a coincidence? the preliminary stages of an image comes into being. In the microscope and telescope,
The sciences, and above all those sciences in labour, as ours is, frequently as we know, these occur in part at ideal points, regions in which no tangible
borrow models from other sciences. My dear fellows, you wouldn't believe what component of the apparatus is situated. 1 see no necessity to apologise for the
you owe to geology. If it weren't for geology, how could one end up thinking imperfections of this or of any similar imagery. Analogies of this kind are only
that one could move, on the same level, from a recent toa much more ancient intended to assist us in our attempt to make the complications of mental functioning
layer? It wouldn't be a bad thing, I'll note in passing, ifevery analyst went out intelligible by dissecting the function and assigning its different constituents to
and bought a small book on geology. There was once an analyst geologist, different component parts of the apparatus. So far as know, the experiment has not
Leuba. who wrote one. | can't recommend you to read it too highly. hitherto been made of using this method of dissection in order to investigate the way in
Optics could also have its say. At this point I find that I'm not in disagreement which the mental instrument is put together, and I can see no harm in it. We are
with the tradifion established by the master ~ more than one of you must have justified, in my view, in giving free rein to our speculations so long as we retain the
noticed in the Trawndeutung, in the chapter ‘The psychology of the dream- coolness of our judgement and do not mistake the scaffolding for the building. And
process’, the famous schema into which Freud inserts the entire proceedings of
the unconscious. + (1900a) SE V 538.
76 Freud’s Papers on Technique 1953-1954 The topic of the imaginary

™N
IN
shice alour firstupproach to something unknown ql that we need is the assistance of opportunities for employing certain distinctions which show you the extent to
provisional ideas, | shall give preference in the first instance to hypotheses of the which the symbolic source counts in the emergence ofa given phenomenon.
crudest and most concrete description.* On the other hand, there is in optics a set of phenomena which can be said to
Idon't have to tell you that, seeing as advice is given so as not to be followed, be altogether real since we are also guided by experience in this matter, but in
since then we haven't missed an opportunity of taking the scaffolding for the which, nonetheless, subjectivity is implicated at every moment. When you see
building. On the other hand, the authorisation which Freud gives us to make a rainbow, you're seeing‘something completely subjective. You see it at a
use of supplementary relations so as to bring us closer to an unknown fact certain distance as if stitched on to the landscape. It isn't there. It is a subjective
incited me into myself manifesting a certain lack of deference in constructing a phenomenon. But nonetheless, thanks to a camera, you record it entirely
schema. objectively. So, what is it? We no longer have a clear idea, do we, which is the
Something almost infantile will do for us today, an optical apparatus much subjective, which is the objective. Or isn’t it rather that we have acquired the
simpler than a compound microscope ~ not that it wouldn't be fun to follow up habit of placing a too hastily drawn distinction between the objective and the
the comparison in question, but that would take us a bit far out of our way. subjective in our little thought-tank? Isn't the camera a subjective apparatus,
I cannot urge you too strongly to a meditation on optics. The odd thing is that entirely constructed with the help ofan x and a y which take up residence in the
an entire system of metaphysics has been founded on geometry and mechanics, domain which the subject inhabits, that is to say that of language?
by looking to them for models of understanding, but up to now it doesn't seem I will leave these questions hanging, to move straight on to a small example
as though optics has been exploited as much as it could have been. Yet it should that I will try to get into your heads before I put it on the blackboard, because
lend itself to a few dreams, this strange science which sets itself to produce, by there is nothing more dangerous than things on the blackboard — it’s always a
means of apparatuses, that peculiar thing called images, in contrast to other bit flat.
scicuces, Which import into nature a cutting up, a dissection, an anatomy. It is a classical experiment, which used to be performed in the days when
Don't think that, having said this, | am trying to make you believe that the physics was fun, in the days when physics was really physics. Likewise, as for
moon is made of green cheese, or to make you take optical images for those us, we find ourselves at a moment in time when psychoanalysis is really
images with which we are concerned. But, all the same, it is not for nothing that psychoanalysis. The closer we get to psychoanalysis being funny the more it is
they share a name. real psychoanalysis. Later on, it will get run in, it will be done by cutting corners
Optical images possess a peculiar diversity - some of them are purely and by pulling tricks. No one will understand any longer what's being done,
subjective, these are the ones we call virtual, whereas others are real, namely in just as there is no longer any need to understand anything about optics to make
sume respects, behave like objects and can be taken for such. More peculiar still a microscope. So let us rejoice, we are still doing psychoanalysis.
we can make virtual images of those objects which are real images. In such an Puta vast cauldron in place of me ~— which perhaps could quite happily stand
instance, the object which is the real image quite rightly has the name of virtual in for me on some days, as a sound-box ~ a cauldron as close as possible to being
object. a half-sphere, nicely polished on the inside, in short a spherical mirror. If it is
There is in truth something which is even more surprising, which is that brought forward almost as far as the table, you won't see yourselves inside it —
optics is founded on a mathematical theory without which it is absolutely hence, even if] were turned into a cauldron, the mirage effect that occurs from
impossible to structure it. For there to be an optics, for each given point in real time to time between me and my pupils would not come about here. A spherical
space, there must be one point and one corresponding point only in another mirror produces a real image. To each point of a light ray emanating from any
space, Which is the imaginary space. This is the fundamental structural point on an object placed at a certain distance, preferably in the plane of the
hypothesis. It gives the impression of being overly simple, but without it one sphere’s centre, there corresponds, in the same plane, through the convergence
cannol write even one equation, nor symbolise anything ~ optics would be of the rays retlected on the surface of the sphere, another luminous point
imipossible. Even those who are not aware of this couldn't do a thing in optics if which yields a real image of the object.
it didn’t exist. | am sorry that [ haven’t been able to bring the cauldron today, nor the
Here, too, the imaginary space and the real space fuse. Nonetheless they experimental apparatuses. You'll have to represent them to yourselves.
have to be conceived of as different. When it comes to optics, there are many Suppose that this is a box, hollow on this side, and that it’s placed on a stand,
at the centre of the half-sphere. On the box, you will place a vase, a real one.
* (1900a) GW IE 541; Stud H S12; SE V 536. Beneath it, there is a bouquet of flowers. So, what is happening?

NE
78 Freud's Papers on Technique 1953-1954 The topic of the imaginary 79

stands, in its innocence — these authors didn't make it up for us — it seduces us

with its contingent details, the vase and the bouquet.
Indeed, the specific domain of the primitive ego, Urich or Lustich, is
constituted by a splitting, by a differentiation from the external world — what is
included inside is differentiated from what is rejected by the processes of
exclusion, Aufstossung, ahd of projection, From then on, ifthere are any notions
which are placed at the forefront of every psychoanalytic conception of the
primitive stage of the ego's formation, it is clearly those of container and
contained. This is how the relation of the vase to the flowers that it contains can
serve us aS a metaphor, a most precious one at that.
\
You know that the process physiological maturation allows the
of his
The experiment of the inverted bouquet
‘subject, at a given moment in his history, to integrate effectively his motor
‘The bouquet is reflected in the spherical surface, meeting at the symmetrical functions, and to gain access to a real mastery of his body. Except the subject
point of luminosity. Consequently, a real image is formed. Note that the rays do becomes aware of his body as a totality prior to this particular moment, albeit in
not quite cross perfectly in my schema, but that is also true in reality, and for all a correlative manner. That is what | insist upon in my theory of the mirror-
optical instruments — one only ever gets an approximation. Beyond the eye, the stage — the sight alone of the whole form of the human body gives the subject an
rays continue their movement, and diverge once again. But for the eye, they are imaginary mastery over his body, one which is premature in relation to a real
convergent, and give a real image, since the characteristic of rays which strike mastery. This formation is separated from the specific process of maturation
the eye in a convergent form is that they give a real image. Convergent in and is not confused with it. The subject anticipates on the achievement of
meeting the eye, they diverge in moving away from it. If the rays happen to psychological mastery, and this anticipation will leave its mark on every
meet the eye in the opposite sense, then a virtual image is formed. This is what subsequent exercise of effective motor mastery.
happens when you look at an image in the mirror — you see it where it isn’t. This is the original adventure through which man, for the first time, has the
Here, on the contrary, you see it where it is on the one condition that your eye experience of seeing himself, of reflecting on himself and conceiving of himself
be in the field of the rays which have already crossed each other at the as other than he is — an essential dimension of the human, which entirely
corresponding point. structures his fantasy life.
At that moment, while you do not see the real bouquet, which is hidden, if In the beginning we assume there to be all the ids, objects, instincts, desires,
you are in the right field, you will see a very peculiar imaginary bouquet tendencies, etc. That is reality pure and simple then, which is not delimited by
appear, taking shape exactly in the neck of the vase. Since your eyes have to anything, which cannot yet be the object of any definition, which is neither
move linearly in the same plane, you will have an impression of reality, all the good, nor bad, but is all at the same time chaotic and absolute, primal. ‘This is
while sensing that something is strange, blurred, because the rays don't quite the level Freud is referring to in Die Verneinung, when he talks about
cross over very well. The further away you are, the more parallax comes into judgements of existence - either it is, or itis not. And it is here that the image of
play, and the more complete the illusion will be. the body gives the subject the first form which allows him to locate what
This is a fable we will put to a great deal of use. To be sure, this schema has no pertains to the ego and what does not. Well then, let us say that the image of the
pretension to touch on anything which has a substantial relation to anything body, if we locate it in our schema, is like the imaginary vase which contains
we deal with in analysis, the so-called real or objective relations, or the the bouquet of real flowers. That's how we can portray for ourselves the subject
imaginary relations. But it allows us to illustrate in a particularly simple way of the time before the birth of the ego, and the appearance of the latter.
what follows on from the strict intrication of the imaginary world and the real I’m schematising, as you're quite well aware, but developing a metaphor, a
world in the psychic economy — now you are going to see how. thinking apparatus, requires that from the start one give a sense of what its use
is. You will see that this apparatus here possesses a versatility which allows for
all sorts of movement. You can invert the experiment’s conditions — the pot
2
could just as well be underneath and the flowers on top. You could make what
‘This little experiment pleased me. It is not me who invented it, it has been is real imaginary at your discretion, on condition that you retain the relation of
around for a long time, known as the experiment of the inverted bouquet. As it the signs, + - + or ~+—-.
SU Freud’s Papers on Technique 1953-1954 The topic of the imaginary 84

Kor there to be an illusion, for there to be a world constituted, in front of the Here’s a boy, who, we are told, is about four years old, whose general level of
eye looking. in which the imaginary can include the real and, by the same development is between fifteen and eighteen months. That is a question of
token, fashion it, in which the real also can include and, by the same token, definition. and you never know what is meant. What is the instrument of
locate the imaginary, one condition must be fulfilled — as | have said, the eye measurement? Specification is often omitted. An affective development of
must be in a specific position, it must be inside the cone. fifteen to eighteen months, this notion remains even more fuzzy than the image
iit is outside this cone, it will no longer see what is imaginary, for the simple of a flower in the experiment I just set up for you.
reason that nothing from the cone of emission will happen to strike it. It will see The child possesses a very limited vocabulary, more than just limited in fact,
things ia their real state, entirely naked, that is to say, inside the mechanism, a incorrect. He deforms words and uses them inopportunely most of the time,
sud, empty pot. or some lonesome tlowers, depending on the case. whereas at other times it is clear that he knows their meaning. Melanie Klein
You might say ~ We aren't an eye. what is Utis eye which wanders around? insists on the most striking fact — this child has no desire to make himself
The box represents your own body, the bouquet, instincts and desires, the understood, he doesn't try to communicate, his only activities, more or less
objects of desire which rove about. And the cauldron, what's that? That could playful, are emitting sounds and taking pleasure in meaningless sounds, in
well be the cortex. Why not? It would be fun — we'll discuss that some other day. noises.
In the middle of this, your eye doesn’t rove about, it is fixed there, like a Even so, this child possesses something of language — otherwise Melanie
titillating litthe appendage of the cortex. So, why am 1 telling you that it roves Klein could not make herself understood by him. He has some of the elements of
around and that, according to its position, sometimes it works, sometimes it the symbolic apparatus at his disposal. On the other hand, Melanie Klein, from
doesn't? this first, so crucial, contact with the child on, characterises his attitude as one
The eye is here, as so often, symbolic of the subject. of apathy, indifference. He is nonetheless not lacking in direction. He does not
The whole of science is based on reducing the subject to an eye, and that is give the impression of being an idiot, far from it. Melanie Klein distinguishes
why itis projected in front of you, that is to say objectivated — I'll explain that to him from all the neurotic children she had previously seen by observing that he
you another time. In relation to the theory of the instincts, some time back gave no sign of anxiety, even in the disguised forms which it assumes in
someone proposed a very beautiful construction, the most paradoxical that I neurotics, either explosion or else withdrawal, stiffness, timidity. It could not
have ever heard professed. which entitied the instincts. At the end, not a single escape the notice of this therapist, with all her experience. ‘There he is, this
one was left standing, and it was, just on this account, useful to undertake this child, as ifnothing was going on. He looks at Melanie Klein as he would look at a
demonstration, fn order to reduce us fora moment to being only an eye, we had piece of furniture.
to put ourselves in the shoes of the scientist who can decree that he is just an I am underlining these aspects because I want to highlight the uniform
eye, and can put a notice on the door — Do not disturb the experimenter. In life, character of reality for him. Everything is equally real for him, equally
things are entirely different, because we aren't an eye. So, this eye, what does it indifferent.
meany This is where Mlle Gélinier’s quandaries begin.
{t means that, in the relation of the imaginary and the real, and in the The child’s world, Melanie Klein tells us, is manufactured out ofa container —
constitution of the world such as results from it, everything depends on the this would be the body of the mother — and out of the contents of the body of this
position of the subject. And the position of the subject — you should know, I’ve mother. In the course of the development of his instinctual relations with this
been repeating it for long enough — is essentially characterised by its place in the privileged object, the mother, the child is led into instigating a series of relations
symbolic world, in other words in the world of speech. Whether he has the right of imaginary incorporations. He can bite, absorb the body of his mother. The
to. or is prohibited from, calling himself Pedro hangs on this place. Depending style of this incorporation is one of destruction.
on what is the case, he is within the field of the cone or he isn’t. In this maternal body, the child expects to encounter a certain number of
Vhatis what you have to get into your heads, even if it seems a bit much, to objects, themselves possessing a specific unity, though objects which may
understand what follows. be dangerous for him are included amongst them. Why dangerous? For exactly
the same reason whereby he is dangerous for them. Mirroring them, as one
might well say, he clothes them with the same capacities for destruction as
3
> The term Lacan uses is ‘contenu’, which covers both the English ‘contents’ (the term Klein uses,
We must accept Melanie Klein's text for what it is, namely the write-up of an see op. ci. p. 232 and particularly p. 221) and ‘contained’, which is the English term most
experiment. appropriate for some of the uses to which Lacan is putting the term in this seminar.
S2 Freud's Papers on Technique 1953-1954 The topic of the imaginary 83

those of which he feels himself the bearer. It is in virtue of this that he will come see why, in the beginning, the conjunction of different parts, of sets,° can never
to accentuate their exteriority in relation to the initial limitations of his ego, and be accomplished.
reject them like bad, dangerous objects, poo-poo. Here, we are in the mirror relation.
Certainly these objects will be externalised, isolated, from this primal We call this the plane of projection. But can one designate the correlate of
universal container, from this primal large whole that is the fantasised image of projection? One has to find another word than introjection. As we use it in
the mother’s body, the entire empire of the primal infantile reality. But they will analysis, the word ‘intrdjection’ is not the opposite of projection. It is almost
nevertheless always be endowed with the same maleficent accent which only ever used, you will notice, when it is a question of symbolic introjection. It
marked his first relations with them. That is why he will reintroject them, and is always accompanied by a symbolic denomination. Introjection is always the
switch his attention to other, less dangerous objects. For example, he will introjection of the speech of the other, which introduces an entirely different
construct What is called the equation faeces-urine. Different objects from the dimension from that of projection. Around this distinction you can discrimi-
external world, more neutralised, will be set up as the equivalents of these first nate between what is a function of the ego and what pertains to the order of the
ones, Will be linked up with them through the imaginary — | am underlining it -- dual relation, and what is a function of the super-ego. It is not for nothing that
equation. Hence, the symbolic equation that we rediscover between these they are distinguished within analytic theory. nor that it is accepted that the
objects arises from an alternating mechanism of expulsion and introjection, of super-ego, the authentic super-ego, is a secondary introjection in relation to
projection and absorption, that is to say from an imaginary interplay. the function of the ideal ego.
It is specifically this interplay that 1 am trying to symbolise for you in my These are asides. I'}l return to the case described by Melanie Klein.
schema through the imaginary inclusions of real objects, or inversely, through The child is there. He has a certain number of significant registers at his
the capturing of imaginary objects within a real enclosure. disposition. Melanie Klein — we can follow her at this point — underlines the
In Dick's case, we see clearly that there is the skeleton of imagination, if [may extreme restrictedness of one of them — the imaginary domain. Normally it is
say, of the external world. It is there ready to surface, but only ready to. through the possibilities of play in the imaginary transposition that the
Dick plays with the container and the contained. Already, he has quite progressive valorisation of objects comes about, on the plane that we
naturally entified in several objects, the litle train for example, a certain commonly designate as affective, through a diversification, a fanning-out of all
number of tendencies, of persons even ~ himself as little train, in comparison the imaginary equations which allow the human being to be the only animal to
with his father who is the big train. Moreover, the number of objects of have at his disposition an almost infinite number of objects — objects marked
significance is, surprisingly, for him very limited, limited to the minimal signs with the value of a Gestalt in his Umwelt, objects isolated as to their forms.
capable of expressing the inside and the outside, the contained and the Melanie Klein underlines the poverty of the imaginary world, and, by the same
container. Hence the dark space is straightaway assimilated to the inside of the token, the impossibility of this child entering into an effective relation with
mother’s body, in which he seeks refuge. What doesn't happen is the free play, objects qua structures. An important correlation to grasp.
the conjunction between the different forms, imaginary and real, of objects. If we now sum up everything that Melanie Klein describes of this child's
That is why, when he seeks refuge in the empty, dark inside of the maternal attitude, the significant point is simply the following — he makes no call.
body, there are no objects there, to Mile Gélinier’s great surprise. For one simple The call — this is a notion that | ask you to retain. You are going to say to
reason —in his case, the bouquet and the vase cannot both be there at the same yourselves — Of course, being Doctor Lacan, he uses this to go on about language
time. That is the key. again. But the child already has his own system of language, quite sufficient.
Mule Gélinier’s astonishment is based on the fact that, for Melanie Klein, The proof is that he plays with it. He even makes use of it to play a game of
everything takes place on a plane of equal reality — of unreal reality,* as she puts opposition against the adults’ attempts to intrude. For example, he behavesin a
it. which, in fact, doesn’t facilitate our conceiving the dissociation of different way which is said in the text to be negativistic.* When his mother suggests a
sets® of primitive objects. Melanie Klein has neither a theory of the imaginary name to him, one he is capable of reproducing in a correct manner, he
nor a theory of the ego. It is up to us to introduce these notions, and to reproduces it in an unintelligible, deformed manner, which cannot be of any
understand that, in so far as one part of reality is imagined, the other is real and use whatever. Here we rediscover the distinction to be drawn between
inversely, in so far as one part is reality, the other becomes imaginary. One can negativism and negation — as M. Hyppolite reminded us, thus demonstrating
* English in the original.
> English in the original. ® English in the original,
 1953-1954 The topic of the imaginary 85
d4 Freud's Papers on Technique

not only his culture, but also that he has seen patients with his own eyes. As to Melanie Klein here doesn’t, as she is vividly aware, offer an interpret-
Dick. he uses language in a strictly negalivistic manner. ation. She starts off, she says, from ideas she already has, which are well
In consequence, in introducing the call, it isn't language that [am covertly known, as to what happens at this stage. I won't beat about the bush, I just tell
shipping in. I willeven go further — not only isn't it language, butit isn'ta higher him — Dick little train, big train daddy-train.
level of language. It is in fact beneath language, if we're talking of levels. You Thereupon, the child starts to play with his little train, and he says the word,
have only to observe a pet to see that a being deprived of language is quite station.” Crucial mloment, when the sticking of language to the subject's
capable of making calls on you, calls to draw your attention to something imaginary begins to sketch itself.
which, in some sense or other, it lacks. To the human call a further, richer Melanie Klein plays this back to him — The station is mummy. Dick is going into
development is reserved. because it takes place precisely in a being who has mummy. From this point on, everything starts firing. She'll only feed him these
already reached the level of language. kinds of lines, and no others. And very quickly the child makes progress. That's
Let us be schematic. a fact.
A certain Karl Buhler put forward a theory of language, which is neither So what did Melanie Klein actually do? — nothing other than to bring in
unique, nor the most complete, but in it you'll tind something of interest — he verbalisation. She symbolised an effective relationship, that of one named being
differentiates three stages in language. Unfortunately he located them in with another. She plastered on the symbolisation of the Oedipal myth, to give it
registers which do not make them very comprehensible. its real name. It’s from that point on that, after an initial ceremony, taking
first of all, the level of the statement as such, which is almost a level of the refuge in the dark in order to renew contact with the container, something new
natural datum. I am at the level of the statement when I say the simplest thing awakens in the child.
to someone, for example an imperative. It is at this level of the statement that The child verbalises a first call — a spoken call. He asks for his nurse, with
everything concerning the nature of the subject must be placed. An officer, a whom he came in and who he had allowed to leave as if it were nothing to him.
professor, will not give an order in the same language as a worker or foreman, For the first time, he reacts by calling, which is not simply an affective call,
At the level of the statement, from its style to its very intonation, everything we mimed by the whole being, but a verbalised call, which from then on includes a
learn bears on the nature of the subject. reply. This is his first communication in the strict, technical sense of the term.
In any imperative, there's another plane, that of the call. Itis a question of the Things then progress to the point where Melanie Klein brings into play all the
tone in which the imperative is uttered. The same text can have completely other elements of a situation which is from then organised, right up to and
different imports depending on the tone. The simple statement stop can have, including the father himself, who comes to take his own part. Outside of the
depending on the circumstances, completely different imports as a call. sessions, Melanie Klein says, the child's relations unfold on the plane of the
The third level is communication properly speaking — what is at issue, and its Oedipus complex. The child symbolises the reality around him starting from
reference to the totality of the situation. this nucleus, this little palpitating cell of symbolism which Melanie Klein gave
With Dick we are at the level of the call. The call acquires its weight within him.
the already acquired system of language. Now, what is crucial here is that this That is what she later calls — gaining access to his unconscious."
child does not voice any call. The system whereby the subject comes to locate What did Melanie Klein ever do, which would reveal the least comprehen-
himself in language is interrupted, at the level of speech. Language and speech sion of any kind of process, which might, in the subject, amount to his
are not the same thing — this child is, up to a certain point, a master of language, unconscious? She accepts it from the start, out of habit. Do all read the case
but he doesn't speak. There is a subject here who quite literally does not reply. again and you will see in it the spectacular demonstration of the formula that |
Speech has not come to him, Language didn’t stick to his imaginary system, am always giving you — the unconscious is the discourse of the other.
whose register is extremely limited — valorisation of trains, of door-handles, of Here is a case where it is absolutely apparent. There is nothing remotely like
the dark. His faculties, not of communication, but of expression, are limited to an unconscious in the subject. It is Melanie Klein’s discourse which brutally
that. For him, the real and the imaginary are equivalent. grafts the primary symbolisations of the Oedipal situation on to the initial ego-
Hence Melanie Klein here has to give up on technique. She has the minimum related [moique| inertia of the child. Melanie Klein always does that with her
of material. She doesn't even have games — this child does not play. When he subjects, more or less implicitly, more or less arbitrarily.
picks up a little train for a while, be doesn't play, he does it in the same way he In the extreme case, in the case of the subject who hasn't acceded to human
moves through the air — as if he were an invisible being, or rather as if 7 English in the original.
everything were, in a specific manner, invisible to him. ® ‘avoir ouvert les portes de so the phr is taken f 1's paper (p. 229).
a4 Freud's Papers on Technique 1953-1954 The topic of the imaginary 85

notonly his culture, but also that he has seen patients with his own eyes. As to Melanie Klein here doesn't, as she is vividly aware, offer an interpret-
Dick. he uses language in a strictly negativistic manner. ation. She starts off, she says, from ideas she already has, which are well
In consequence, in introducing the call, it isn’t language that [am covertly known, as to what happens at this stage. I won't beat about the bush, | just tell
slipping in. will even go further — not only isn'tit language, butit isn't a higher him — Dick little train, big train daddy-train.
level of language. It is in fact beneath language, if we're talking of levels. You Thereupon, the child starts to play with his little train, and he says the word,
have only to observe a pet to see that a being deprived of language is quite station.” Crucial moment, when the sticking of language to the subject's
capable of making calls on you, calls to draw your attention to something imaginary begins to sketch itself.
which, in some sense or other. it lacks. To the human call a further, richer Melanie klein plays this back to him — The station is nnummiy. Dick is going into
development is reserved, because it takes place precisely in a being who has mummy. From this point on, everything starts firing. She'll only feed him these
already reached the level of language. kinds of lines, and no others. And very quickly the child makes progress. That's
Let us be schematic. a fact.
A certain Karl Buhler put forward a theory of language, which is neither So what did Melanie Klein actually do? - nothing other than to bring in
unique, nor the most complete, but in it you'll tind something of interest — he verbalisation. She symbolised an effective relationship, that of one named being
diflerentiates three stages in language. Unfortunately he located them in with another. She plastered on the symbolisation of the Oedipal myth, to give it
registers which do not make them very comprehensible. its real name. It’s from that point on that, after an initial ceremony, taking
First of all, the level of the statement as such, which is almost a level of the refuge in the dark in order to renew contact with the container, something new
natural datum. [ am at the level of the statement when IJ say the simplest thing awakens in the child.
to someone, for example an imperative. It is at this level of the statement that The child verbalises a first call - a spoken call. He asks for his nurse, with
everything concerning the nature of the subject must be placed. An officer, a whom he came in and who he had allowed to leave as if it were nothing to him.
professor, will not give an order in the same language as a worker or foreman. For the first time, he reacts by calling, which is not simply an affective call,
Atthe level of the statement, from its style to its very intonation, everything we mimed by the whole being, but a verbalised call, which from then on includes a
learn bears on the nature of the subject. reply. This is his first communication in the strict, technical sense of the term.
In any imperative, there's another plane, that of the call. [tis a question of the Things then progress to the point where Mclanie Klein brings into play all the
tone in which the imperative is uttered. The same text can have completely other elements of a situation which is from then organised, right up to and
different imports depending on the tone. ‘The simple statement stop can have, including the father himself, who comes to take his own part. Outside of the
depending on the circumstances, completely different imports as a call. sessions, Melanie Klein says, the child's relations unfold on the plane of the
The third level is communication properly speaking - what is at issue, and its Oedipus complex. The child symbolises the reality around him starting from
reference to the totality of the situation. this nucleus, this little palpitating cell of symbolism which Melanie Klein gave
With Dick we are at the level of the call. The call acquires its weight within him.
the already acquired system of language. Now, what is crucial here is that this That is what she later calls — gaining access to his unconscious."
child dues not voice any call. The system whereby the subject comes to locate What did Melanie Klein ever do, which would reveal the least comprehen-
himselfin language is interrupted, at the level of speech. Language and speech sion of any kind of process, which might, in the subject, amount to his
are not the same thing - this childis, up lo a certain point, a master of language, unconscious? She accepts it from the start, out of habit. Do all read the case
but he doesn't speak. There is a subject here who quite literally does not reply. again and you will se nit the spectacular demonstration of the formula that |
Speech has not come to him. Language didn’t stick to his imaginary system, am always giving you — the unconscious is the discourse of the other,
whose register is extremely limited — valorisation of trains, of door-handles, of Here is a case where it is absolutely apparent. There is nothing remotely like
the dark. His faculties, not of communication, but of expression, are limited to an unconscious in the subject. It is Melanie Klein’s discourse which brutally
that. for him, the real and the imaginary are equivalent. grafts the primary symbolisations of the Oedipal situation on to the initial ego-
Hence Melanie Klein here has to give up on technique. She has the minimum related [moique| inertia of the child. Melanie Klein always does that with her
of material. She doesn't even have games — this child does not play. When he subjects, more or less implicitly, more or less arbitrarily.
picks up a little train for a while, he doesn’t play, he does it in the same way he In the extreme case, in the case of the subject who hasn’t acceded to human
moves through the air - as if he were an invisible being, or rather as if 7 English in the original.
everything were, in a specilic manner, invisible to him. * ‘avoir ouvert les portes de son incor av ~ the phrase is taken from Klein's paper (p. 229).
s6 Freud’s Papers on Technique 1953-1954
The topic of the imaginary 87
reality, since no call ean be heard from him, what are the effects of the
toit, except through symbolic extrapolations which constitute the ambiguity of
symbolisations introduced by the therapist? They specify an initial position
all systems such as Melanie Klein's — she tells us, for instance, that within the
from which the subject can introduce an interplay between the imaginary and
empire of the maternal body, the subject is to be found with all his brothers, not
the real and master his development. He is swallowed up in a series of
to mention the father’s penis, etc. Really?
equivalences, in a system in which objects are substituted one for the other. He
It doesn’t matter, since we can thus grasp in any case how this world is set in
runs through an entire sequence of equations which drive him out of the space
motion, how the imaginary and real begin to be structured, how the successive
between the doors where he had gone to seek refuge in the absolute darkness of
investments develop, investments which delineate the variety of human, that is
the total container, to those objects which he substitutes for it — the wash-basin,
nameable, objects. All of this process has its point of departure in this initial
for example. In this way he unfolds and articulates his entire world. And then,
fresco constituted by a significative speech, formulating a fundamental
from the wash-basin, be moves on to an electric radiator, on to objects which
structure which, in the law of speech, humanises man.
are more and more complex. He accedes to richer and richer contents
How can I put this in yet another way? Ask yourselves what the call
[contenus], such as to the possibility of defining the contained [contenu] and the
represents in the field of speech. Well, it’s the possibility of refusal. I say the
non-contained [non-contemu.
possibility. The call doesn’t imply refusal, it doesn’t imply any dichotomy, any
Why speak in this case of the development of the ego? That's to confuse, as
bipartition. But you can see for yourselves that it is when the call is made that
always, the ego and the subject.
dependency relations establish themselves in the subject. From then on he will
Development only takes place in so far as the subject integrates himself into
welcome his nurse with open arms, and in deliberately hiding himself behind
the symbolic system, acts within it, asserts himself in it through the use of
the door, he will all at once reveal in relation to Melanie Klein the need to havea
genuine speech. It isn't even essential, you should note, that this speech be his
companion in this cramped corner which he occupied for a while. Dependency
own, In the couple that is temporarily constituted in what is, however, its least
will come in its train.
aflectivated form, between the therapist and the subject, genuine speech can be
In this observation, then, you see, quite independently, the set of pre-verbal
brought forth. To be sure, not any old speech — that's where we perceive the
and post-verbal relations at play in the child. And you realise that the external
virtue of the symbolic situation of the Oedipus complex.
world — what we call the real world, which is only a humanised, symbolised
It really is the key - a very elementary key. | have already pointed out to you
world, the work of transcendence introduced by the symbol into the primitive
that there most probably was a whole bunch of keys. One day perhaps | will give
reality - can only be constituted when a series of encounters have occurred in
you a lecture on what we gain in this respect from the myths of primitive
the right place.
peoples ~ | wouldn't say inferior, because they aren't inferior, they know much
These positions belong to the same order as those which, in my schema, cause
more than we do. When we study a mythology, for example one that might
a given structuration of the situation Lo depend upon a given position of the eye.
perhaps appear with respect to a Sudanese population, we discover that for
I will make further use of this schema. For today | only wanted to introduce a
them the Ocdipus complex is just a rather thin joke. Itis a very tiny detail within
bouquet, but one can introduce the other.
an immense myth. The myth allows the cataloguing of a set of relations
Starting from Dick's case and by employing the categories of the real, the
between subjects of a wealth and complexity besides which the Ocdipus
symbolic and the imaginary, I showed you how it can happen that a subject
complex seems only to be so abridged an edition that in the end it cannot always
who has all the elements of language at his disposition, and who has the
be used.
possibility of making several imaginary moves that allow him to structure his
But no matter. Us analysts have been satistied with it up to now. Certainly,
world, might not be in the real. Why isn’t he in it? — simply because things didn't
one does try to elaborate it a bit, but it is all rather timid. One always feels
happen in a specific order. The figure is in its entirety upset. No way of giving
terribly tangled up because one doesn’t distinguish easily between the
this entirety any development whatsoever.
imaginary, symbolic and real.
Are we dealing with the development of the ego here? Look at Melanie Klein's
Now I want to bring the following to your attention. When Melanie Klein
text again. She says that the ego had developed in too precocious a manner, in
offers him the Oedipal schema, the imaginary relation which the subject lives,
such a way that the child has too real a relation to reality, because the
though extremely impoverished, is already complex enough for us to say that
imaginary could find no place there ~ and then, in the second part of her
he has a world of his own. But for us this primitive real is literally ineffable. As
sentence, she says that it is the ego which halts development. This simply means
Jong as he doesn'ttell us anything about it, we have no means of gaining access
that the ego cannot be fruitfully employed as an apparatus in the structuring of
88 Freud's Papers on Technique 1953-1954

this external world. For one simple reason — because of the poor position of the
eye, the ego quite simply doesn't appear. Vul
Let the vase be virtual. The vase doesn't appear, and the subject remains in a
reduced reality, with a similarly reduced imaginary baggage. The wolf! The wolf!
‘The core of this observation, which is what you must understand — the virtue
of speech, in so far as the act of speech is a mode of functioning coordinated to a THE CASE OF ROBERT
symbolic system that is already established, typical and significant. THEORY OF THE SUPER-EGO

It would be worth your while to ponder the questions, to reread the text, also THE CORE OF SPEECH
to get the teel of this little schema so that you could see for yourselves what use
you could put it to.
What I've given you today is a theoretical discussion in complete contrast
with the set of problems raised last time by Mlle Gélinier. The title of the next
session, Which will take place in two weeks time, will be -- The transference — the
different levels on which it should be studied. In the course of our dialogue, you have been able to get acquainted with the
24 February 1954 ambition which rules our commentary, namely that of reconsidering the
fundamental texts of the analytic experience. The moving spirit of our
excavation is the following idea — whatever in an experience is always best seen
is at some remove. So it is not surprising that it should be here and now
that we are led, in order to understand the analytic experience, to begin again
with what is implied by its most immediate given, namely the symbolic
function, or what in our vocabulary is exactly the same thing — the function of
speech.
We rediscover this, the central domain of analytic experience, signalled
throughout Freud's oeuvre, never named, but signalled at every step. | don't
think | am pushing it when [ say that that is what can be immediately
translated, almost algebraically, from any Freudian text. And this translation
yields the solution of a number of antinomies which become apparent in Freud
with that honesty which ensures that any given one of his texts is never closed,
as if the whole of the system were in it.
For the next session, | would very much like someone to undertake to give a
commentary on a text which exemplifies what I’ve just been saying. This text is
to be found between ‘Remembering, repeating and working-through’ and
‘Observations on transference-love’, which are two of the most important texts
in the collection of Papers on Technique. I am referring to ‘On narcissism: an
introduction’.
It is a text that we cannot but bring into our course, as soon as we have
touched on the situation of the analytic dialogue. You will agree with that, if
you know the further implications of these terms, situation and dialogue —
dialogue in inverted commas.
We tried to define resistance within its own field. Then, we formulated a
definition of transference. Now, you will be well aware of the great distance
which separates — resistance, which keeps the subject from this full speech
which analysis awaits from him, and which is a function of that anxiogenic
106 Freud's Papers on Technique 1953-1954

According to our inclination and the idea each of us has of schizophrenia, of

its mechanism and of its fundamental source, we can include or exclude this
IX
cause from the category of schizophrenic illness.
it is clear that it isn’t schizophrenia in the sense ofa state, in as much as you On narcissism
have showed us its significance and its movement. But there is here a
schizophrenic structure of the relation to the world and an entire set of CONCERNING PERFORMATIVES?

phenomena that we could, if need be, bring into line with the catatonic set of SEXUALITY AND LIBIDO

phenomena. To be sure, strictly speaking there is no symptom of it, so that we FREUD OR JUNG

can place the case, as Lang did, in any one given category, only in order to give THE IMAGINARY EN NEUROSIS

it an approximate location. But some deficiencies, some failures in adaptation THE SYMBOLIC IN PSYCHOSIS

to the human, point towards something which later, analogically speaking,

would present itself as a schizophrenia.
think that one can't say any more about it, except that it is what one calls an
exemplary case. After all, we have no reason to think that the nosological For those who weren't here last time, | am going to appraise the utility as I see it
categories have been there all along, awaiting us from eternity. As Péguy said, of bringing Freud’s article ‘Zur Einflthrung des Narzissmus’ in at this point.
the little pegs always fit into the little holes, but there comes a time when the
little pegs no longer correspond to the little holes. That it is a question of
1
phenomena of a psychotic nature, more exactly of phenomena which may
terminate in psychosis, seems indisputable to me. Which doesn’t mean that all How can we take stock of our findings to date? This week, I realised, not without
psychoses have analogous beginnings. satisfaction, that some of you have started to be seriously concerned about the
systematic usage that I recommend to you here, and have done fur seisic Hi
Leclaire, I'm asking you specifically to work out something for next time from of the categories of the symbolic and the real. You know that I insist on the
‘On narcissism: an introduction’, which is to be found in volume IV of the notion of the symbolic by telling you that it is always advisable to start with that
Collected Papers, or in volume X of the complete works. You’ll see that what is at notion in order to understand what we are doing when we intervene in
issue are the questions raised by the register of the imaginary, which we are in analysis, and especially when we intervene in a positive fashion, namely
the course of studying here. through interpretation.
We have been led to emphasise that aspect of resistance which is to be located
10 March 1954
at the very level of the utterance of speech. Speech can express the being of the
subject, but, up to a certain point, it never succeeds in so doing. So we have now
reached the point where we ask ourselves the question — in relation to speech
how should one locate all these affects, all these imaginary references which
are ordinarily invoked when one wants to define the action of the transference
in the analytic experience? You have clearly perceived that it is not a matter of
course.
Full speech is speech which aims at, which forms, the truth such as it
becomes established in the recognition of one person by another. Full speech is
speech which performs.? One of the subjects finds himself, afterwards, other
than he was before. That is why this dimension cannot be evaded in the
analytic experience.

2 "De ce qui fait acte’ — faire acte means ‘to act as, to give proof of’. The term ‘performative’ is taken
from J. L. Austin, How To Do Things With Words, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1962.
2 "qui fait acte’.
 On narcissism 109
108 Freud’s Papers on Technique 1953-1954

We cannot think of the analytic experience as a game, a lure, an intrigue the basis of the facts he possesses as to his condition, his problem, his situation,
based on an illusion, a suggestion. Its stake is full speech. Once this point has as the most naive of his prejudices, upon which his illusions are founded,
been made, as you might have already noticed, lots of things sort themselves including his neurotic illusions, in so far as what is at stake there is an
outand are clarified, but lots of paradoxes and contradictions appear. The value important part of the constitution of the neurosis.
of this conception is precisely to bring out these paradoxes and contradictions, It would seem — and this is where the problem lies — that this speech act can
which doesn't make them opacities and obscurities. On the contrary, it is often only progress along the path of intellectual conviction which emerges from
what appears to be harmonious and comprehensible which harbours some educational intervention, that is to say a higher intervention, which comes
opacity. And inversely it isin the antinomy, in the gap, in the difficulty, that we from the analyst. Analysis progresses through indoctrination.
happen upon opportunities for transparency. This is the point of view on which It is this indoctrination one has in mind when one talks about the first phase
our method is founded, and so, | hope, is our progress. of analysis as having been intellectualist. Of course it never existed. Perhaps
‘he first of the contradictions to appear is the remarkable fact that the some intellectualist conceptions of analysis were around then, but that doesn’t
analytic method, ifit aims at attaining full speech, starts offon a path leading in mean that intellectualist analyses actually took place — the forces authentically
the diumetrically opposed direction, in so far as it instructs the subject to at work were there from the beginning. If they hadn't been, analysis would
delineate a speech as devoid as possible of any assumption of responsibility and never have had the opportunity to show its mettle, and assert itself as an
that iteven frees him from any expectation of authenticity. It calls on him to say obvious method of psychotherapeutic intervention.
everything that comes into his head. It is through these very means that it What is called intellectualism in this context is something completely
facilitates, that is the least one can say, his return on to the path which, in different from what is connoted were we to speak of something intellectual. The
speech, is below the level of recognition and concerns the third party, the better we analyse the various levels of what is at stake, the better we will be able
object. to distinguish what has to be distinguished and unify what has to be unified,
‘Two planes have always been distinguished within which the exchange of and the more effective our technique will be. That is what we will try to do.
human speech is played out — the plane of recognition in so far as speech links So, there really must be something other than indoctrination to explain the
the subjects together into this pact which transforms them, and sets them up as effectiveness of the analyst's interventions. That is what experience has shown
human subjects communicating — the plane of the communiqué, in which one to be efficacious in the action of transference.
can distinguish all sorts of levels, the call, discussion, knowledge, information, That's where the opacity begins — what, after all, is transference?
but which, in the final analysis, involves a tendency to reach an agreement on In its essence, the efficacious transference which we're considering is quite
the object. The term ‘agreement is still there, but here the emphasis is placed on simply the speech act. Each time a man speaks to another in an authentic and
the object considered as external to the action of speech, which speech full manner, there is, in the true sense, transference, symbolic transference ~
expresses. something takes place which changes the nature of the two beings present.
To be sure. the object is not devoid of reference to speech. From the start, it is But there what is at issue is a transference other than the one which is
already partially given in the system of objects, or objective system,’ in which initially encountered in analysis not only as a problem, but as an obstacle.
one should include the accumulated prejudices which make up a cultural Indeed, this function should be located on the imaginary plane. So it is to specify
comuiunity, up to and including the hypotheses, the psychological prejudices it, that the notions you are familiar with, the repetition of prehistoric situations,
even, from the most sophisticated generated by scientific work to the most unconscious repetition, the putting into effect of a reintegration of history —
naive and spontaneous, which most certainly do not fail considerably to history in the opposite sense to the one | once put forward, since it is a question

influence scientific references, to the point of impregnating them. of an imaginary reintegration, the past situation only being experienced in the
So here is the subject invited to abandon himself entirely to this system ~ it is present, without the knowledge of the subject, in so far as its historical
just as much the scientific knowledge he possesses or what he can imagine on dimension is misrecognised |méconnue| by him — you'll note that I didn’t say
unconscious. All these ideas have been put forward so as to define what we
observe, and their reward is a guaranteed empirical finding. They don’t
* ‘system objectal, ou objectiv’ — ‘objectal’ is a word coined within the technical vocabulary of
psychos ysis (Robert gives 1951 as its date of introduction) to describe whatever relates to the uncover, however, the reason, the function, the signification of what we
ego.
ident of the subject's linguistics
‘Objectif’has a venerable history, in philosophy, observe in the real.
y usage ~ it corresponds roughly to ‘objective’, including therein the often neglected
al senses in English (and such uses as in ‘the objective of a telescope’).
To expect an explanation for whatever is observed is, you'll perhaps tell me,
110 Freud's Papers on Technique 1953-1954 On narcissism 11]

io expect too much, to manifest too great a thirst for theory. Several hard- concerned, he is a very instructive witness. You will see the diversity of opinion
headed characters would perhaps like to impose a damper on us at this point. ~ Sachs, Rado, Alexander - when the question was broached at the Salzburg
However it seems to me that the analytic tradition doesn’t distinguish itself Congress.* You will also see the said Rado announce in what direction he
by its lack of ambition in this respect — there must be reasons for that. Besides, intends to push the theorisation of the source of analytic efficacity. Strangely
whether justified or not, whether carried away or not by Freud's example, few enough, having promised to spell out in black and white the solution to these
are the psychoanalysts who have not succumbed to the theory of mental problems, he never didso.
evolution. This particular metapsychological business is in truth completely It seems that there’s some mysterious resistance at work, acting so as to keep
inpossible, for reasons which will become apparent later. But one cannot the question in comparative darkness, not only on account ofits own obscurity,
practice psychoanalysis, not even for one second, without thinking in since little glimmers of light sometimes appear in this or that researcher’s work,
metapsychological terms, just as M. fourdain* was pretty well obliged to speak the more reflective subjects. One really has the feeling that the question is often
prose, whether he wanted to or not, as soon as he started speaking. This fact is caught sight of, that someone gets as close as is possible to it, but that it exerts
truly structural to our activity. some sort of repulsion which forbids it being rendered into concepts. Perhaps
Last time | alluded to Freud's article on transference-love. You are well aware here more than elsewhere, it is possible that the completion of the theory, and
of the strict economy of Freud's works, and to what extent it can be said that he even its progress, are experienced as a threat. That isn't to be excluded. It is no
never truly addressed himself to a subject which was not urgent, indispensable doubt the most propitious hypothesis.
for him to deal with — in the course of a career which had almost the span of a The opinions expressed in the course of discussions on the nature of the
human life, especially if one thinks at what point in his actual life, his biological imaginary link established in the transference bear a very close relation to the
life. he began his teaching. notion of the object relation.
We cannot but see that one of the most important questions in analytic This latter idea has now come to the foreground in analytic theoretical work.
theory is to know what is the connection between the bonds of transference and But you are aware of the extent to which the theory wavers on this issue.
the characteristics, both positive and negative, of the love relation. Clinical ‘Take for example the fundamental article of James Strachey, which appeared
experience vouchsafes it, as does, by the same token, the theoretical history of in the International Journal of Psycho-analysis, dealing with the source of
the discussions arising around what is called the source of therapeutic therapeutic efficacity. It is one of the best argued of texts, whose entire emphasis
efficaciousness. In short, this subject has been on the agenda roughly since the falls on the super-ego. You can see the difficulties that this conception gets one
1920s ~ the Berlin Congress first of all, the Salzburg Congress, the Marienbad in, and the number of supplementary hypotheses that the above-mentioned
Congress. Since that time, the usefulness of the function of transference in the Strachey is required to introduce in order to sustain it. He suggests that the
manipulation we undertake of the patient’s subjectivity has never stopped analyst takes on, in relation to the subject, the function of the super-ego. But
being questioned. We have even separated out something which some go so far the theory according to which the analyst is purely and simply the mainstay of
as to call, not just transference neurosis — a nosological label designating what the super-ego’s function cannot stand up, since this function is precisely one of
the subject is affected with — but a secondary neurosis, an artificial neurosis, an the most important sources of the neurosis. So the argument is circular. ‘To get
actudlisation of the neurosis in the transference, a neurosis which knots the out of it, the author finds himself forced to introduce the idea of a parasitical
imaginary persona of the analyst in its threads. super-ego — a supplementary hypothesis which is completely unjustified, but
We know all that. But the question as to what constitutes the mainspring of which the contradictions in his argument necessitate. Besides, he is obliged to
what takes effect in analysis remains obscure. | am not talking about the go too far. So as to argue for the existence of this parasitical super-ego in
courses of action we sometimes undertake, but about the very source of analysis, he is obliged to posit that a set of exchanges, of introjections and
therapeutic efficacity. projections, take place between the analysand subject and the analyst subject,
‘The least one can say is that there is an enormous diversity of opinion in the which bring us to the level of the mechanisms by which good and bad objects —
analytic literature on this subject. To go back to the venerable discussions, all introduced by Melanie Klein into the practice of the English school — are
you have to do is take a look at the last chapter of Fenichel’s little book. I’m not constituted. This brings with it the risk of re-creating them ad nausean..
often one to recommend reading Fenichel, but as far as the historical data are One can locate the question of the relations between the analysand and the

* Sce p. 3 nl above. * See p. 164 nt below.

 112 Freud's Papers on Technique 1953-1954 On narcissism 113

analyst on a completely different plane — on the plane of the ego and the non- the while remarking that it is plurivalent and that it acts in several registers at a
ego. that is to say, on the plane of the narcissistic economy of the subject. time, in the symbolic, the imaginary and the real.
Moreover, the question of transference-love has from the start been too These are not three fields. Even in the animal kingdom, you have been able to
closely linked with the analytic study of the notion of love. We are not dealing see that it is in relation to the same actions, the same behaviour, that we can
with love in the guise of Eros — the universal presence of a power binding distinguish precisely the functions of the imaginary, the symbolic and the real,
subjects together, underlying the whole of the reality in which analysis is for the simple reasonthat they do not belong in the same order of relations.
played out — but of passionate love, as it is concretely lived by the subject, as a There are a number of ways of introducing these ideas. Mine has its limits,
sort of psychological catastrophe. It raises the question, as you know, of like any dogmatic account. But its usefulness is in being critical, that is to say in
knowing how this passionate love is, in its very essence, linked to the analytic arising just where the empirical efforts of researchers meet with a difficulty in
relation. handling a pre-existing theory. That is what makes for the value of the path of
Having said something nice about Fenichel’s book, let me tell you something textual commentary.
nasly about it. It is as delightful as it is striking to note the sort of revolt, of
insurrection even, that the extremely pertinent remarks of two authors on the
2
relations between love and transference seem to elicit in Mr Fenichel. They
emphasise the narcissistic character of the relationship of imaginary love, and Doctor Leclaire starts the reading and commentary on the initial pages of ‘On
show how and to what extent the loved object is confounded, by means of one narcissism: an introduction’. — Interruption.
whole facet of its qualities, of its attributes, and also of its impact on the psychic
What Leclaire is saying here is quite right. For Freud there is a relation between
ecconomy, with the subject’s ego-ideal. One thus sees the general syncretism of
a thing x which has moved on to the plane of the libido, and the disinvestment
Mr Fenichel’s thought linked up in a curious fashion with this middle way
of the external world characteristic of the forms of dementia praecox ~ take this
which is his and which leads him to experience such repugnance, a real phobia
in as extended a sense as you can. Now, to set up the problem in these terms
when faced with the paradox generated by this imaginary love. Imaginary love
creates great difficulties in analytic theory, as it was constituted at that time.
in its essence partakes of illusion, and Mr Fenichel experiences a kind of horror
In order to understand it one must look at the Three Essays on the Theory of
in thus seeing the very function of love devalued.
Sexuality, where the notion of a primitive auto-erotism comes from.* What is
That is precisely what is at issue — what is this love, which enters in as an
this primitive auto-erotism, whose existence Freud postulates? It is a libido
imaginary mainspring in analysis? Fenichel's horror tells us something about
which constitutes the objects of interest, and which is allocated, through a sort
the subjective structure of the character in question.
of evasion, of extension, of pseudopodia. Beginning with this emission by the
Well, for us, what we have to locate is the structure which articulates the
subject of libidinal investments, its instinctual development unfolds, its world is
narcissistic relation, the function of love in its widest sense and the transference
built up, in accordance with an instinctual structure peculiar to it. This
in ils practical efficacy.
conception does not give rise to any difficulties so long as Freud leaves out of the
There is more than one way to help you find your sense of direction in the
libido’s mechanism everything pertaining to a register other than that of desire
midst of all the ambiguities which, as I think you have become aware, make
as such. The register of desire is, for him, an extension of the concrete
their appearance again and again at every twist and turn in the analytic
manifestations of sexuality, an essential relation maintained by the animal
literature. | hope to teach you new categories, which introduce essential
being with the Umwelt, its world. So you see that this is a bipolar conception —
distinctions. These are not external distinctions, scholastic or ever-expanding
on one side the libidinal subject, on the other the world.
ones ~ juxtaposing this or that field, proliferating bipartitions off to infinity, a
Now this conception breaks down, as Freud knew very well, if one
mode of procedure which consists in always introducing supplementary
generalises excessively the notion of libido, because, in so doing, one neutralises
hypotheses. No doubt this method is open to those who wantit; but for my partI
it. Isn't it quite clear, moreover, that it adds essentially nothing to an
am aiming at progress in understanding.
understanding of the facts of neurosis if the libido functions roughly in the same
It is a matter of bringing into focus what is implied by simple ideas, which
way as M. Janet called the function of the real? On the contrary, the libido takes
already exist. There is no point in taking apart indefinitely, as one could —as has
on its meaning by being distinguished from the real, or realisable, relations,
been done in a remarkable work on the idea of transference. | am rather
inclined to leave intact the empirical totality of the notion of transference, all * (1905d) GW V 82-3; Stud V 88-9; SE VIE 181-2; et seq.
114 Freud's Papers on Technique 1953-1954 On narcissism 115

from all the functions which have nothing to do with the function of desire,
maintaining the distinction between the two libidos, throughout the entire
from everything touching on the relations of the ego and of the external world.
article he continually skirts around the notion of their equivalence. How can
li has nothing to do with instinctual registers other than the sexual, with, for
these terms be clearly distinguished if one maintains the idea that they are
example, whatever bas to do with the domain of nutrition, of assimilation, of
equivalent in energetic terms, which is what allows one to say that it is in so far
hunger in so far as it is conducive to the preservation of the individual. If the
as the libido is disinvested from the object that it returns back on to the ego?
libido is not isolated from the entire range of functions for the preservation of
There's the problem raised. As a result, Freud is led to conceive of narcissism as
the individual, it loses all meaning.
a secondary process. A unity comparable to the ego does not exist at the
Now, in schizophrenia, something happens which completely disturbs the
beginning, nicht von Anfang, is not to be found in the individual from the start,
relations of the subject to the real, swamping the foundation with form. This
and the Ich has to develop, entwickelt werden.* The auto-erotic instincts, in
fact, all of a sudden, raises the question of knowing whether the libido doesn’t
contrast, are there right from the start.
go much further than the definition given it by taking the sexual register as its
Those of you who are somewhat familiar with what I am putting before you
organising, central core. That's the point at which the libido theory begins to
will see that this idea confirms the usefulness of my conception of the mirror-
create problems.
stage. The Urbild, which is a unity comparable to the ego, is constituted at a
it creates such problems that it has been effectively put in question. I'll show
specific moment in the history of the subject, at which point the ego begins to
you that when we analyse Freud’s commentary on the text written by
take on its functions. This means that the human ego is founded on the basis of
Senatsprdsident Schreber. It is in the course of this commentary that Freud
the imaginary relation. The function of the ego, Freud writes, must have eine
becomes aware of the difficulties created by the problem of libidinal investment
neue psychische Aktion, ... zu gestalten.? In the development of the psyche,
in the psychoses. And he then makes use of notions that are ambiguous enough
something new appears whose function it is to give form to narcissism. Doesn't
for Jung to say that he had given up defining the nature of the libido as being
that indicate the imaginary origin of the ego’s function?
uniquely sexual. Jung does take this step decisively, and introduces the notion
In the next two or three lectures, | will specify what use, simultaneously
of introversion, which is for him — that is the criticism which Freud made of him
limited and various, should be made of the mirror-stage. For the first time, | will
a notion ohne Unterscheidung,’ lacking in capacity to discriminate. And he
teach you, in the light of Freud’s text, that there are two registers implied in this
ends up with the vague notion of psychic interest, which collapses into one
stage. Finally, if last time | showed you that the imaginary function contains
single register what belongs to the order of the preservation of the individual
the plurality of experience of the individual, | am going to show you that one
and what belongs to the order of sexual polarisation of the individual in its
cannot limit it to that — because of the need to distinguish the psychoses from
objects. All that remains is a kind of relation of the subject to himself which Jung
the neuroses.
says pertains to the libidinal order. What the subject must do is realise himself
as an individual in possession of genital functions.
Since then, psychoanalytic theory has been vulnerable to a neutralisation of 3
the libido, which consists, on the one hand. in firmly asserting that the libido is
What is now important to bear in mind from the article's opening is the
what is involved, and on the other, in saying that it is simply a property of the
difficulty Freud experiences in defending the originality of the psychoanalytic
soul, the creator of its world. Such a conception is extremely difficult to
dynamic against the Jungian dissolution of the problem.
distinguish from analytic theory, in so far as the Freudian idea ofa primordial
According to the Jungian schema, psychic interest comes and goes, goes out,
auto-erotism forming the basis upon which objects are progressively consti-
comes back, colours, etc. It drowns the libido in the universal magma which
tuted is almost equivalent, in terms of its structure, to Jung’s theory.
will be the basis of the world's constitution. Here we come upon a very
‘Vhatis why, in his article on narcissism, Freud harks back to the necessity of traditional mode of thought clearly distinct from orthodox analytic thought.
distinguishing egoistical libido and sexual libido. Now you understand one of Psychic interest is here nothing other than an alternating spotlight, which can
the reasons why he wrote this article. come and go, be projected, be withdrawn from reality, at the whim of the
the problem is an extremely knotty one for him to resolve. All the while pulsation of the psyche of the subject. It’s a pretty metaphor, but it throws no
light on practice, as Freud underlines. It does not allow one to grasp the
(1914do}GW X 139; Stud 1142; SE XIV 74, quoted on p. 90 above, where it is translated as
Sndiscriminately’.
® GW X 142; Stud Hi 144; SE XIV 77. * Ibid,
llo Freud's Papers on Technique 1953-1954 On narcissism 117

differences that there might be between a directed, sublimated retreat of psychotic reconstructs his world, what is invested to start off with? You will see
interest in the world which the anchorite may achieve, and that of the along what path, for many of you unexpected, this will take us — the answer is
schizophrenic, whose result is however structurally quite distinct, since the words. There, you cannot but recognise the category of the symbolic.
subject discovers that he is completely stuck. No doubt a considerable number We will push what this critique opens up further. We will see that it may be
of clinical points have been brought out by the Jungian investigation, which the case that the specific structure of the psychotic should be located in a
intrigues by its quaintness, its style, the parallels it establishes between what symbolic unreal, or in symbolic unmarked by the unreal. The function of the
some mental or religious ascesis produces and what a schizophrenic produces. imaginary is to be located somewhere entirely different.
‘That, perhaps, is a way of working which has the advantage of adding some You're beginning to see, | hope, the difference between Freud’s and Jung's
colour and life for the benefit of the researchers, but which quite clearly has appreciation of the place of the psychoses. For Jung, the two domains of the
illuminated nothing in the way of mechanisms — Freud doesn't miss the symbolic and the imaginary are there completely confused, whereas one of the
opportunity of quite mercilessly underlining that in passing. preliminary articulations that Freud’s article allows us to pinpoint is the clear
What is crucial for Freud is grasping the difference in structure which exists distinction between the two.
between the withdrawal from reality which we observe in the neuroses and Today is only a curtain-raiser. But when it comes to matters as important as
that which we observe in the psychoses. One of the crucial distinctions is these, you can’t raise the curtain too slowly. I have only managed to introduce
established in a surprising manner — surprising at least for those who haven't —as moreover the very title of the article puts it — a limited number of questions,
come to grips with these problems. which have never been raised. It will give you the time to turn things over in
In the refusal to recognise [méconnaissance], in the refusal, in the barrier your minds, and to do a little work from now to the next time.
oppused to reality by the neurotic, we note a recourse to fancy. Here we have
function, which in Freud’s vocabulary can only refer to the imaginary register. Next time [ would like to see, in commenting on this text, as close a
We know the extent to which people and objects in the neurotic’s milieu collaboration as possible from our friend Leclaire. | would rather like to see
change signilicance entirely, in relation to a function there is no problem in Granoff engage in this work — he seems to have a particular inclination and
naming ~ without going further than ordinary linguistic usage — as imaginary. interest in Freud’s article on transference-love — this may well be an
Imaginary bere refers — in the first instance, to the subject's relation to its opportunity for him to contribute by introducing this article. There’s a third
formative identifications, which is the true meaning of the term ‘image’ in article that I would like to entrust to someone for next time. It’s a text which
analysis — secondly, to the relation of the subject to the real whose comes from the metapsychology of the same period, and which pertains
characteristic is that of being illusory, which is the facet of the imaginary most directly to our object — ‘Compléments meétapsychologiques dla doctrine des réves’ }°
often highlighted. which is translated into French as ‘La théorie des réves’. I'll give it to whoever
Now, whether rightly or wrongly, it doesn't matter at this stage, Freud doesn’t mind taking it on himself— for example our dear Perrier, for whom this
emphasises that nothing comparable is to be found in psychosis. When it comes will be the chance to comment on the subject of schizophrenics.
to the psychotic subject, if he loses the realisation of the real, he doesn’t find any
17 March 1954
imaginary substitute. That is what distinguishes him from the neurotic.
This conception may appear extraordinary at first glance. You are well 10 ‘Metapsychological supplement to the theory of dreams’ (1917d) GW X 412-26; Stud IH
aware that one has to make some headway in conceptualisation at this point in 179-91; SE XIV 222-35.
order to follow Freud's thinking. One of the most widespread of conceptions is
that the deluded |délirant] subject is dreaming, that he is bang in the middle of
the imaginary. So, in Freud’s conception, the function of the imaginary cannot
be the function of the unreal. Otherwise there'd be no point in his denying the
psychotic access to the imaginary. And since in general Freud knows what he is
saying, we will have to find a means of filling in what he meant on this topic.
This will lead us into a coherent exposition of the relations between the
imaginary and the symbolic, since that is one of the points on which Freud
brings this difference of structure to bear with great energy. When the
 The two narcissisms 1}9

the world that he was offering, but a well defined theory, based on a clearly, yet
entirely new, demarcated field, comprising several human realities, particu-
larly psychopathological ones — subnormal phenomena, that is to say those
which normal psychology does not study, dreams, slips, mishaps, which
The two narcissisms
disturb some of the so-called higher functions.
The problem which Freud faced at this point in time was that of the structure
THE NOTION OF DRIVE
of the psychoses. How to map out the structure of the psychoses within the
THE IMAGINARY IN ANIMALS AND IN MAN
framework of the general theory of the libido?
SEXT AL BEHAVIOUR TS PARTICULARLY PRONE TO THE LURE
Jung gives the following solution — the profound transformation of reality
THE CRICH
apparent in the psychoses is due to a metamorphosis of the libido, analogous to
that which Freud had caught a glimpse of with respect to the neuroses. Except
that, in the psychotic, Jung says, the libido is introverted into the internal world
of the subject — a notion left hanging in the greatest ontological uncertainty. It
‘On narcissism: an introduction’ dates from the beginning ofthe 19] 4 war, and is on account of this introversion that for him reality fades into a twilight. The
it is quite moving to think that it was at that time that Freud was developing mechanism of the psychoses is thus perfectly continuous with that of the
such a construction. Everything which we include under the meta- neuroses.
psychological rubric emerges between 1914 and 1918, following the publica- Being intent on the working out, starting off from experience, of extremely
tion in 1912 of Jung's work translated into French under the title well defined mechanisms, always concerned with its empirical reference, Freud
Aletamorphoses et Symboles de la Libido. sees analytic theory transformed by Jung into a vast psychic pantheism, a series
of imaginary spheres each enveloping the other, which leads to a general
classification of contents, of events, of the Erlebnis of the individual's lite, and
1 finally to what Jung calls the archetypes. This is not the path down which a
clinical, psychiatric working out of the objects of research can be undertaken.
Jung’s approach to the mental illnesses had an entirely different perspective
And that is why he now attempts to ascertain the relation which the sexual
from Freud's, since his experience was with the gamut of schizophrenias,
whereas Freud's was with the neuroses. His 1912 work puts forward a drives are capable of maintaining amongst themselves, those sexual drives to
which he had given such prominence owing to their having been hidden and to
grandiose unitary conception of psychic energy, fundamentally different in its
inspiration, and even in its definition, from the notion developed by Freud their having been revealed by his analysis, and the ego drives, which up to that
point he had not brought to the fore. Can one say, yes or no, whether the one is
under the name of libido.
the shadow of the other? Js reality constituted by this universal libidinal
Nevertheless, the theoretical difference is still recalcitrant enough to state for
Freud to be struggling with difficulties which one can sense throughout the projection which is at the heart of the Jungian theory? Or is there on the
contrary a relation of opposition, a relation of conflict, between the ego drives
article.
The point, for him, is to maintain a clearly demarcated usage — these days we and the libidinal drives?
would say operational ~ of the notion of libido, which is essential to sustaining With his usual honesty, Freud makes it clear that his determination to
maintain this distinction is based on his experience of the neuroses, and, after
his discovery. On what, in short, is the Freudian discovery based — if not on this
all, that is only a limited experience. That is why he says no less clearly that one
fundamental realisation that the symptoms of the neurosis reveal an indirect
form of sexual satisfaction. Freud had very concretely demonstrated the sexual may postulate, at a primitive stage, prior to that which psychoanalytic
investigation permits one to penetrate, a condition of narcissism, in which it is
function of symptoms with respect to neurotics, by means of a series of
equivalents, the last of which is a therapeutic sanction. With this as a impossible to distinguish the two fundamental propensities, the Sexuallibido
foundation, he always maintained that it wasn't a new, totalising conception of and the Ichtriebe.2 They are inextricably mixed together, beisammen,* con-
fused, and are not distinguishable - ununterscheidbar — by our coarse analysis.
1
Yhe orig work, Wandliungen und Symbole der Libido (1911-12) was translated as The Nonetheless he explains why he strives to maintain the distinction.
Psychology of die Unconscious (New York, 1916). The revised, better known version is that to be * GW X 142; Stud Hl 44; SE XIV 76.
udin The Collected Works ofC. G. Jung, vol 5, Princeton: Bollingen, 1953-1979, under the title
* ‘beisammen’ usually means ‘together (in the same place)
Stanbols of Transformation.
120 Freud’s Papers on Technique 1953-1954 The two narcissisms ]

NN
—
First of all there is the experience of the neuroses. Next, he says, the fact that I'd like to make a remark here, which may perhaps seem to you to contrast
the distinction between the ego-drives and the sexual drives lacks clarity at the sharply with those we usually make. But you will see that it will help us with
moment should perhaps be attributed simply to the fact that the drives our task, which is to clarify Freud’s ongoing discussion, whose obscurities and
constitute, for our theory, the tinal point of reference. The theory of drives is not impasses he in no way keeps from us, as you have already seen, if only through
at the base of the construction, but right up at the top. It is eminently abstract. our commentary on the first few pages of this article. He doesn’t offer a solution,
and Freud later was to call it our mythology. That is why, with the concrete but opens up a series of questions, into which we must try to penetrate.
always within his sights, always putting his own speculative projects in their At the time Freud was writing, there was, as he himself says somewhere, no
place, he underlines their limited value. He compares the notion of drive to the ready-made,* ready-to-wear theory of instincts. Even today, it hasn't been
highest-level notions from physics, matter, force, attraction, which have only brought to completion, but some progress has been made since the work of
been developed in the course of the historical evolution of the science, and Lorenz and Tinbergen — which justifies these perhaps over-speculative remarks
whose initial form was uncertain, in truth confused before they were purified that I’m now going to make.
and then applied. What follows from endorsing the Weissmannian notion of the immortality of
Weare not following Freud, we are accompanying him. The fact that an idea the germ-plasm? If the individual which develops is quite distinct from the
occurs somewhere in Freud's work doesn’t, for all that, guarantee that it is fundamental living substance which the germ-plasm constitutes, and which
being handled in the spirit of the Freudian researches. As for us, we are trying to does not perish, if the individual is parasitic, what function does it have in the
conform to the spirit, to the watchword, to the style of this research. propagation of life? None. From the point of view of the species, individuals are,
Freud backed up his theory of the libido with what the biology of his time if one can put it this way, already dead. An individual is worth nothing
made available to him. The theory of instincts cannot but take into account a alongside the immortal substance hidden deep inside it, which is the only thing
fundamental bipartition between the final ends of the preservation of the to be perpetuated and which authentically and substantially represents such
individual and those of the continuity of the species. What we find in the life as there is.
background is nothing other than Weissmann’s theory, of which you must Let me clarify this. From the psychological point of view, what exactly is this
remember something from your time spent in philosophy classes. This theory, individual led to propagate, by the infamous sexual instinct? — the immortal
which hasn't been definitely proved, posits the existence of an immortal substance enclosed in the germ-plasm in the genital organs, represented in
substance made up of sexual cells. These would make up a unique sexual line of vertebrates by spermatozoa and ova. Is that all? — obviously not, since what is
descent through continuous reproduction. ‘he germ-plasm would, still propagated is, after all, an individual. Only, it doesn’t reproduce as an
according to this theory, be what preserves the existence of the species, and individual, but as a type. It only manages to reproduce the type already brought
what is perpetuated from one individual to the next. In contrast, the somatic into being by the line ofits ancestors. In this respect, not only is it mortal, but it
plasm would be like an individual parasite which, from the point of view of the is already dead, since properly speaking it has no future. [t isn’t this or that
reproduction of the species, would have carried on growing in a lateral fashion, horse, but the prop, the embodiment of something which is The Horse. If the
with the sole aim of being the vehicle for the eternal germ-plasm. Freud concept of species is valid, if natural history exists, it is because there are not
immediately makes it clear that his own construction does not pretend to be a only horses, but also The Horse.
biotogical theory. Whatever value he attaches to this reference, on which he This really is where the theory of instincts ends us up. In fact, what serves as
decided to rely until further notice and with reservations, he would not hesitate support for the sexual instinct on the psychological plane?
to abandon it, if an examination of the facts within the domain specific to What is the basic mainspring determining the setting into motion of the
analytic investigation were to render it useless and detrimental. gigantic sexual mechanism? What is its releasing mechanism, as Tinbergen
Similarly there is no reason, he says, to swamp the Sexualenergie in the as yet puts it, following Lorenz?® It isn’t the existence of the sexual partner, the
unexplored field of psychic facts. The point is not to seek for the libido a particularity of one individual, but something which has an extremely intimate
universal kinship with every single psychic manifestation, That would be as if, relation with what I have been calling the type, namely an image.
he says, in a question of inheritance, someone were to invoke, as a proof to the
> English in the original.
lawyer of his rights, the universal kinship which, according to the monogenetic © The French term here translated ‘releasing mechanism’ is ‘déclencheur’, which means ‘trigger,
hypothesis, links all men together.* starter (as in starter for a car)’. It was thought best to make this term consistent with English
language works in ethology, despite the connotations, which Lacan exploits, borrowed from other
* GW X 144; Stud Hl 46; SE XIV 79, semantic fields.
 $22 Freud's Papers on Technique 1953-1954 The two narcissisms 123

In the functioning of pairing mechanisms, ethologists have proved the can quite easily make a cut-out which, even when poorly put together, will
dominance of the image, which appears in the guise ofa transitory phenotype have exactly the same effect on the female, provided that it possesses certain
through modification of the external appearance and whose manifestation markings — Merkzeichen. Sexual behaviour is quite especially prone to the lure.
serves as a signal, of a constructed signal, that is to say a Gestalt, which sets the This teaches us something which is important in working out the structure of
reproductive behaviour in motion. The mechanical throwing into gear of the the perversions and the neuroses.
sexual instinct is thus essentially crystallised in a relation of images, in —1] now L
come to the term you're expecting — an imaginary relation.
This is the framework within which we must articulate the Libidotriebe and
2
the Ichtriebe.
The libidinal drive is centred on the function of the imaginary. Since we've got to this point, | am going to introduce a complement to the
Try as an idealist and moralising transposition of analytic doctrine might to schema that I gave you during that little course on the topic of the imaginary.
make us believe, this does not mean that the subject makes his way in the I pointed out to you that this model faithfully follows Freud’s very wishes. He
imaginary towards an ideal state of genitality which would be the ultimate spelled out in several places, particularly in the Trawmdeutung and the Abriss,
sanction and tinal source for the installation of the real. So we now have to that the fundamental psychic agencies should be primarily conceived of as
detine more precisely the relations of the libido with the imaginary and the real, representing what takes place in a camera, namely as images, which are either
and to resolve the problem as to the real function that the ego has in the psychic virtual or real, produced through its functioning. ‘The organic apparatus
economy. represents the mechanism of the camera, and what we apprehend are the
images. Their functions are not homogeneous, because a real image and a
O. MANNONE Can { put in a word? For some time I’ve been perplexed by a virtual image are not the same thing. The agencies that Freud constructs
problem that seems to me simultaneously to complicate and simplify matters. It is should not be taken to be substantial, nor epiphenomenal in relation to the
that the investment of objects by the libido is at bottom a realist metaphor since it only modification of the apparatus itself. Hence the agencies should be interpreted
invests the image of objects. Whereas the investment of the ego can be an intra-psychic by means of an optical schema. A conception that Freud drew attention to on
phenomenon, whereby the ontological reality of the ego is invested. If the libido has many occasions, but which, in his hands, never materialised.
become object-libido, it can then only invest something symmetrical to the ego’s On the left you see the concave mirror, thanks to which the phenomenon of
image. Such that we will have two narcissisms, according to whether it is a libido the inverted bouquet is produced, which I have here transformed since it is
which intra-physically invests the ontological ego, or an object-libido which invests more convenient, into that of the inverted vase. The vase is in the box, and the
someting which may perhaps be the ego-ideul, and is in any case an image of the ego. bouquet is on top.
We would then have a well-founded distinction between primary narcissism and Through the play of reflection of light rays, the vase will be reproduced in the
secondary narcissism. form ofa real, and not virtual, image, to which the eye can accommodate. If the
eye becomes accommodated to the level of the flowers that we have placed
You do know, don’t you, that, step by step, | want to take you somewhere. there, it will see the real image of the vase encompassing the bouquet, and will
We are not proceeding entirely aimlessly, although | am open to welcome give a style and unity to it - a reflection of the unity of the body.
discoveries that we make along the way. | am happy to see our friend Mannoni For the image to have some consistency, it must be a genuine image. What is
taking an elegant jump’ into the subject — one needs to make one every now the definition of an image in optics? — to every point on the object there must
and then — but let us first go back to where we left off. correspond a point on the image, and all the rays issuing from a point must
What am J trying to get at? — to get to grips with this fundamental experience intersect again somewhere in a unique point. An optical apparatus is uniquely
made available to us by the contemporary development of the theory of defined by a univocal or bi-univocal convergence of rays - as one says in
instincts in relation to the cycle of sexual behaviour, which reveals that the axiomatics.
subject is there essentially prone to the lure. If the concave apparatus is placed here where | am, and the conjurer’s little
For example, the male stickleback bas to have beautiful colours on its belly set-up in front of the desk, the image cannot be seen with clarity sufficient to
and back, before the copulation dance with the female can get going. But we produce an illusion of reality, a real illusion. You have to be positioned at a
certain angle. Obviously, depending on the various positions of the eye doing
7 Enevlish in the original. the looking, we might distinguish a given set of circumstances which could
 124 Freud's Papers on Technique 1953-1954 The two narcissisms 125

perhaps allow us to understand the different positions of the subject in relation turn my back on the concave mirror, I would see the image of the vase as clearly
to reality. as if ] were at the end of the room, even though I wouldn’t see it in a direct
To be sure, a subject is not an eye, I've told you that. But this model can be manner. What am I going to see in the mirror? Firstly, my own face, there
applied because we are in the imaginary, where the eye has a great importance. where it isn't. Secondly, at a point symmetrical to the point where the real
Someone raised the question of the two narcissisms. You are well aware that image is, | am going to see this real image appear as a virtual image. Are you
this is what is at issue - the relation between the constitution of reality and the with me? It isn’t diffidult to understand — when you get home, set yourself in
relation with the form of the body, which Mannoni, more or less felicitously, front of a mirror, put your hand in front of you
called ontological. This little schema is only a very simple elaboration of what I’ve been trying to
First let us go back to the concave mirror, on to which, as I've pointed out to explain to you for years with the mirror stage.
you, we could probably project all manner of things whose meaning is organic, Just now, Mannoni mentioned the two narcissisms. First of all, there is, in
in particular the cortex. But let's not turn it into a substance too quickly, fact, a narcissism connected with the corporeal image. ‘This image is identical
because the point here isn't, as you will see more clearly from what follows, the for the entirety of the subject's mechanisms and gives his Uniweltits form, in as
pure and simple exposition of the theory of the little-man-inside-the-man. If I much as he is man and not horse. It makes up the unity of the subject, and we
wanted to use it to redo the-little-man-inside-the-man, there would be no point see it projecting itselfin a thousand different ways, up to and including what we
in my criticising it all the time. And if] am giving in on that, it’s because there is can call the imaginary source of symbolism, which is what links symbolism to
a reason why I'm giving in. feeling, to the Selbstgeftil!, which the human being, the Mensch, has of his own
The eye now, this hypothetical eye I've been telling you about, let us put it body.
somewhere between the concave mirror and the object. This initial narcissism is to be found, if you wish, on the level of the real image
Vor this eye to have precisely the illusion of the inverted vase, that is to say for in my schema, in so far as it makes possible the organisation of the totality of
this eye to see it under optimal conditions, as clearly as if it were at the end of the reality into a limited number of preformed frameworks.
To be sure, this way of functioning is completely different in man and in
animals, which are adapted to a uniform Umwelt. For the animal there is a
Plane limited number of pre-established correspondences between its imaginary
mirror
structure and whatever interests it in its Umwelt, namely whatever is
important for the perpetuation of individuals, themselves a function of the
perpetuation of the type of the species. In man, by contrast, the reflection in the
mirror indicates an original noetic possibility, and introduces a second
narcissism. Its fundamental pattern® is immediately the relation to the other.
For man the other has a captivating value, on account of the anticipation
that is represented by the unitary image as it is perceived either in the mirror or
in the entire reality of the fellow being.
The other, the alter ego, is more or less confused, according to the stage in life,
with the Ichideal, this ego-ideal invoked throughout Freud’s article. Narcissistic
identification — the word identification, without differentiation, is unusable ~
meee
that of the second narcissism, is identification with the other which, under
normal circumstances, enables man to locate precisely his imaginary and
Schema with two mirrors libidinal relation to the world in general. That is what enables him to see in its
place and to structure, as a function of this place and of his world, his being.
room, one thing only is both necessary and sufficient — that there be a plane Mannoni said ontological just now, I’m quite happy with that. What I would
inirror in the middle of the room.
To put it another way, if one put a mirror in the middle of the room, while | * English in the or val,
 The two narcissisms 127
126 Freud’s Papers on Technique 1953-1954

precisely say is — his libidinal being. The subject sees his being in a reflection in
and
relation to the other, that is to say in relation to the Ichideal. Reply to Doctor Leclaire’s question about the ambiguities concerning the [chideal
Hence you see that one has to distinguish between the functions of the ego the Idealich in Freud's text.
on the one hand, they play for man, as they do for every other living creature, a
teaching. We
fundamental role in the structuration of reality — what is more, in man they We are in a seminar here, we are not professing an ex cathedra
profit from a text and
have to undergo this fundamental alienation constituted by the reflected image are trying to find our bearings, and to draw the greatest
of himsell, which is the Urich. the original form of the Ichideal as well as that of above all from someone's thinking as it develops.
the relation to the other. God knows how others, amongst them the best, Abraham and Ferenczi
Is this sufficiently clear for you? | had already given you an initial element of included, have tried to get the development of the ego and its relations to the
this schema, I'm giving you another one today — the retlexive relation to the development of the libido sorted out. This question is the subject of the latest
other. Later on you'll see what use it may serve, this schema. You're right in article brought out by the New York school, but for now let’s stay with Ferenczi
thinking that it is not for the fun of it that I've made up these delightful and Abraham.
constructions. It will be extremely useful, since it will allow you to locate almost Freud relied on the article published in 1913 by Ferenczi on the sense of
all the clinical, concrete questions raised by the function of the imaginary, and reality. It is very poor. Ferenczi is the one who started to put the famous stages
in particular in relation to those libidinal investments whose meanings one into everyone's heads. Freud refers to it. At that point in time, we are still at the
eventually ceases to understand when handling them. stage of the very first theoretical attempts to articulate the constitution of the
real, and the mere fact of receiving a reply was in itself a great help to Freud.
Ferenczi brought him something, and he made use of it.
Reply to Doctor Granoff's intervention concerning the application of the optical The article in question had a decisive influence. It’s like repressed things,
|
schema to the theory of the state of being in love. which have all the more importance for being unknown. Similarly, when some
chap writes something truly stupid, it’s not because no one reads it that it
doesn’t have consequences. Because, without having read it, everyone repeats
The exact equivalence of the object and the ego-ideal in the love relation is one
ofthe most fundamental notions in Freud's work, and one comes across it again
it. Some inanities circulate like that, playing on a mixing up of planes which
and again. The loved object, when invested in love, is, through its captative
people don’t watch out for. Hence, the first analytic theory of the constitution of
effect on the subject, strictly equivalent to the ego-ideal. It is for this reason that, the real is impregnated with ideas in the air at the time, expressed in more or
in suggestion, in hypnosis, we encounter the state of dependency, such an less mythical terms, concerning the stages of the evolution of the human mind.
important economic function, in which there is a genuine perversion of reality
The idea is to be found everywhere, in Jung also, that the human mind has
made decisive progress in very recent times, and that before that we were still at
through the fascination with the loved object and its overestimation. You're
acquainted with the psychology of love which Freud so subtly expounded. We a stage of prelogical confusion — as if it weren't clear that there is no structural
are offered such a large, important slice, that, as you see, we have scarcely come difference between the thought of Mr Aristotle and that of some of the others.
These ideas bring with them their power of confusion and disseminate their
to terms witb it today. But you'll find all manner of things on the topic of what
poison. You can see it clearly in the embarrassment which Freud himself
he calls the choice of the object.
So, you cannot but see the contradiction that exists between this notion of experiences when he refers to Ferenczi’s article.
love and certain mythical conceptions of the libidinal ascesis of psychoanalysis. When one talks of primitives, of so-called primitives, and of mental patients,
it works fine. But where the evolutionary point of view finds complications is
| know not what vague fusion, or communion between genitality and the
constitution of the real is recommended to us as the culmination of affective with children. There, Freud is forced to say that development is far from being
maturation. | am not saying that there isn’t something essential to the that transparent.
constitution of reality in all this, but one must understand what. Because, it is
Perhaps it would be better, in fact, not to refer here to falsely evolutionary
notions. This probably isn’t the place for the fertile idea of evolution. It is a
either one or the other — either love is what Freud is describing, an imaginary
function in its very foundation, or it is the foundation and the base of the world.
question, rather, of elucidating structural mechanisms, which are at work in
our analytic experience, which is centred on adults, Retroactively, one may
Just as there are two narcissisms, so there must be two loves, Eros and Agape.
 Freud's Papers
on Technique
1953-1954
_ oo
_ XI _. — _
able
re oF less verifi
oe
128 mo
thetical and
ideal ego
a —_ a hy po _. __
in
Ego-ideal and
en ,
ppens in childr
clarify what ha eud,
ly following Fr
manner. po in t of vi ew , we are direct th eory
s structural lopment of
his
in taking up thi
LINE
e final deve
L LINE BY
d up. Th rk ed on FREUD
1s where he
en de es, emba
nary adventur
Y
SEXUALIT
because that
OF
ic al ev ol ut io eu d al wa ys THE LURES OF
from analog at Fr pOSiTION
s. Actually, wh
THE
distanced itsell
DEFINES
veral shibboleth
RELATION
ic ia l use of se er va ti on , at every level, THE SYMBOLIC
IMAGINAR
Y

through a supert mely the pres IN THE

opp osi te, na THE SUBJECT
s exactly the
insisted upon Wa fferent stages. rter. You
be considered as di all this as a sta
of wh at ma y
he r ne xt time. Think of im aginary
one step fu rt enon of the
We'll try to go re la ti on wi th the phenom
its strict : an
will come to see ‘On narcissism
on th e di fficult text, qu es tions
transference. for us ons and
Leclaire, who
has worked
to da y to sh are his reflecti
ntinue quote a jot.
1954 is going to co n and try to
2-4 March introduction’. nd section agai
up the seco
with us. Take

j
quote
would have to
tex t to su mmarise. One ct io n in the
ssible distin
: It's an impo the fundamental
Dr LECLAIRE st pa rt po st ul at es
ntion co nc er ni ng the
e of it. The fir paid some atte
almost the whol to wh ic h yo u ha ve
tionably the st ud y of
ose arguments that it is unques
libido, with th Fr eu d tel ls us
as, which co nt in ue s to
the second part, p of paraphreni
germ-plasm. In he cal ls the gr ou
But that is not wh at
aecoxes, which gy of the ego.
the dementia pr to as tu dy of the psycholo s wh ich might lea
d to
st acce ss l other pa th
provide the sure me nt io ns se ve ra
with the in fl ue nc e of
to consider. He . He starts off
he will go on the psycholo gy of the ego an ex ce ll ent
co nc er ni ng wh ic h ma y be considered
reflection s
distribution of
libido. ssion that he
ill nes s on the ma ke s a re fe rence to adiscu
organic medicine. He t, in the
psycho-somatic observation tha
introduction to bj ec t, an d st arts with the na l in vestment
th Fe re nc zi on this su t wi th dr aw s his libidi
had had wi ode, the pa ti en at this is a
an ill nes s, ofa painful epis he is cu re d. He concludes th
course of re when During the
eg o in or de r to free it once mo ic h me ri ts examination.
in to his one wh ido and the
ns id er at io n. but nevertheless st me nt fr om objects, the lib
banal co bidinal in ve and become
wh ic h he wi thdraws his li ai n sh ar e the same destiny,
phase in used, once ag
once again conf
ego’s interest are om.
tell apart. drink deep fr
impossible to mo ur is t you should in
a hu po et
Wilhelm Busc
h? He’s hlamm, the
Do you know of his ca ll ed Balduin Ba re am s,
eation ing dayd
forgettable cr st and platonis
There’s an un pu ts a st op to all his ideali th e stock exchange
,
toothache th e prices oD
shackles. His of love. He fo rg et s are su dd en ly
e promptings forms of being
as well as to th ta bl e, etc . All the habitual
iplication
taxes, the mult
129
 130 Freud's Papers on ‘Technique 1953-1954 Ego-ideal and ideal ego 131

found to be without interest, turned to nothing. And now, in the little hole, lives Damming up,‘ even. In passing, Freud quotes four verses of Heinrich Heine's
the molar. The symbolic world of the prices on the stock exchange and the from the Schdpfungslieder, usually found in collection with the Lieder. Itis a very
multiplication table is entirely invested in pain. strange little group of seven poems, whose irony and humour reveal many
DR LECLAIRE: Freud then turns to another point, the state of sleep in which there is things which touch on the psychology of Bildung. Freud asks himself the
a similar narcissistic withdrawal of libidinal investments. He then returns to question why does man get out of narcissism. Why is man dissatisfied? At this
Aypochondria, to its differences anid points of similarity with organic illness. He thus truly crucial moment in his'scientific argument, Freud quotes Heine's verses to
arrives at the notion that the difference between the two, which is perhaps of no us. God is speaking, and says, IlIness is no doubt the final cause of the whole urge to
importance, is the existence of an organic lesion. The study of hypochondria and create. By creating, | could recover. By creating, | became healthy.>
organic illnesses allows him above all to make it clear that, in the hypochondriac. Dr LECLAIRE: That is to say that this internal work, in which real objects and
there are doubuess also organic changes of the order of vaso-motor difficulties, of imaginary objects are equivalent... .
circulatory difficulties, and he expounds on the similarity between the excitation of
any bodily zone and sexual excitation. He introduces the notion of erotogenicity,' of Freud doesn’t say that they are equivalent. He says that at the point we have
erogenous Zones which can, he says, replace the genitals and behave like them, that is reached in the formation of the external world, it is a matter of indifference
to say. they can be the seat of activity and relaxation. And he tells us that there may be whether one considers them as real or imaginary. The difference only makes its
a vartition in the libidinal investment of the ego in parallel with each variation of this appearance later, when the damming up has had its effects.
type in the ervtogenicity of an organ. And this raises the psycho-somatic problem DR LECLAIRE: So I come to the second sub-chapter of the second part, in which
again. bray case, following on from the study of erotogenicity, and the possibilities of Freud tells us that another important point in the study of narcissism is to be found in
erotogentzation® of any part of the body, he is led to suppose that hypochondria may the analysis of the difference in modalities of the love life of man and woman. He
be classified with the neuroses which depend on the libido of the ego, whereas the other thereby comes to the distinction between two types of choice which one may translate
actual neuroses depend on object-libido. Lhad the impression that this passage, which, by anaclitic and narcissistic, and he studies their genesis. He is led to putting it as
when the second part is considered as a whole, forms a kind of paragraph, is less follows - A human being has originally two sexual objects — himself and the
important than the second paragraph of the second part, in which he defines the two women who takes care of him.® We might start from there.
types of object choice.
Himself, that’s to say his image. It’s absolutely clear.
Freud's essential point is that it is almost of no importance whether a working
over of the libido ~ you know how difficult it is to translate Verarbeitung and Dr LecL AIRE: He goes into greater detail prior to the genesis, to the form, even, of
cluboration isn't quite it? — is produced with real objects or with imaginary this choice. He notes that the initial auto-erotic sexual satisfactions serve a function in
objects. The distinction only appears later, when the libido becomes oriented the preservation of the self. Then, he notes that the sexual drives are at first employed
in the satisfaction of the ego-drives, only becoming autonomous later. Thus the child
towards unreal objects. This leads to a Stauung, to a damming of the libido,
which brings us to the imaginary character of the ego, since it is its libido which at first loves the object which satisfies the ego-drives, that is to say the person who
is in Question. takes care of him. Finally, he is led to define the narcissistic type of object choice,
clearly seen, above all, he says, in those whose libidinal development has been
O. MANNONE: This German word must mean Ue construction ofa dike. It appears disturbed.
tu have a dynamic meaning, and at the same time means a raising of the level, and
consequently a greater and greater energy of libido, which is well rendered in English That is to say in neurotics.
by danuning.* Dr LECLAIRE: These two basic types correspond - as he had mentioned earlier — to
the two basic types, masculine and feminine.

ev. Preud’s term is‘ E geneitat (GW X 151: Stud II 51), translated as ‘erotogenicity’
The two types — narcissistic and Anlehnung.
iSk NIV S4)
* AV neologisi in French (éregéngisation). At the corresponding point in his text, Freud uses the * English in the original.
same term as in note | above, as does SE. 5 A modification of Strachey's translation (SE XIV 85 n3), following Lacan’s more exact and
* Verarbeitung is translated in SE as ‘working over’ (GW X 152; Stud HI 52; SE XIV 86). literal French rendering of the German (GW X 151; Stud Hi 51).
sh in the original. ® GW X 155; Stud II] 55; SE XIV 88.
 133
Ego-ideal and ideal ego
132 Freud's Papers on Technique 1953-1954
ousness.’ We have here a
Anlehnung has the meaning of support. another, or even stifled before they enter consci
Dk Leciuarre: depending on the person. Freud
difference in behaviour, depending on the individual,
follows - We can say that the one man has
The notion of Anlehnung does have some connection with the notion of attempts to formulate this difference as
dependency developed since. But it is a much larger and richer idea. Freud by which he measur es his actual® ego, while the other
set up an ideal in himself
the format ion of an ideal would be the
draws up a list of the different types of fixation in love. which has no reference has formed no such ideal. For the ego
ideal is now the target of the self-love
whatsoever to what one might call a mature relationship — that myth of conditioning factor of repression. This
on. .
psychoanalysis. First of all, within the field of fixation in love, there is which was enjoyed in childhood by the true® ego. And he goes
Verliebtheit, the narcissistic type. It is characterised as follows, that one loves — Ich.
It isn’t the true ego, it's the real ego — das wirkliche
lirstly, what one is oneself, that is to say, as Freud specifies in brackets, oneself—
to make its appearance
secondly, what one was — thirdly, what one would like to be ~ fourthly, the Dr LECLAIRE: The text goes on ~ Narcissism seems
finds itself in posses sion ofall the ego's
person who was a part of one’s own self. That's the Narzissrmustypus. displaced on to this new ideal ego, which
le ego was. As always where
The Anlehnungstypus is no less imaginary, since it is also based on a reversal precious perfections, in the same way as the infanti
incapable of giving
of identification. The subject thus takes his bearings on a primitive situation. the libido is concerned, man has here again shown himself
For the first time Freud uses the term ‘ideal
One loves the woman who feeds and the man who protects. up a satisfaction he had once enjoyed.
now the target of the self-lo ve which was
puts forward a number of considerations which count as ego’ in this sentence — this ideal ego is
Dr LEcCLAIRE: Here, Freud ego. But he then says — He is not willing to
enjoyed in childhood by the true’®
indirect proofs for the conception of the primary narcissism of the child, which he of his childh ood and{. . . | he seeks to recover it
forgo the narcissistic perfection
locates essentially — strange as it may seem ~ in the manner in which parents see their terms ‘ideal ego’ and ‘ego-
in the new form of an ego-ideal.!! Here we find the two
child.
ideal’.
That's the seduction exercised by narcissism. Freud points out what every puzzles of this text, very well
Given the rigour of Freud’s writing, one of the
human being finds fascinating and satisfying in the apprehension of a being same paragraph of the two
brought out by Leclaire, is the coexistence in the
whose perceived characteristics are those of this enclosed world, shut in on
terms.
itself, satisfied, full, which the narcissistic type represents. He compares it to the
ted for the
supreme seduction a beautiful animal exerts. Dr LECLAIRE: It is amusing to observe how the word ‘form’ is substitu

Dk LECLALRE: He says — His Majesty the Baby. The child is what the parents make word ‘ego’.
is precisely
of it, in so far as they project the ideal on to it. Freud makes it clear that he will leave to Exactly. And Freud makes use there of the Ichideal, which
one side the disturbances of the child's primary narcissism, even though that is a Freud is here
symmetrical and opposed to the Idealich. It's the sign that
subject of great importance, since the question of the castration complex is linked to it. are going to try
designating two different functions. What does that mean? We
He takes the opportunity to give a more precise sense of where Adler's notion of the and clarify it in a moment.
masciline protest belongs, by putting it back in its proper place . he substitutes the term
Dr LECLAIRE: What caught my attention is that just when
. which is by no means negligible. ego-idea l is preceded by new form.
ideal ego for ego-ideal, the

DR LECLAIRE:. . . yes, itis of great importance, but he links it up with disturbances Of course.
of the original primary narcissism. We thus come to the following important question as his
DR LECLAIRE: The new form of his ego-ideal is what he projects before him
- what happens to the ego libido in the normal adult? Are we forced to admit that it is
ideal.
completely subsumed in the object investments? Freud rejects this hypothesis, and
this passage is a loose paraphraseof the
reminds us of the existence of repression, which has, in the end, a normalising 7 GW X 160: Stud Ill 60; SE XIV 93. The first senten ofce
the ego; we might say with greater
function. Repression, he says, and this is the essential point in the argument, original German: ‘Repression, we have said, proceeds from
precision that it proceeds from the self-respect of the ego.’
proceeds from the ego, from its ethical and cultural requirements. The same 8 ‘aktuelles’ in German; ‘actual’ in SE; ‘actuel’ in French.
liche’.
impressions, experiences, impulses and desires that one man indulges or at 9 SE gives ‘actual’; French has ‘veritable’; as Lacan points out the German is ‘4
10 Wwirkliche Ich’. 1 GW X 161; Stud HI 61; SE XIV 94.
least works over consciously will be rejected with the utmost indignation by
 and ideal ego 135
Ego-ideal
134 Freud's Papers on Technique 1953-1954
n, has this characteristic.
He adds that what we call our conscience fulfils this fmctio
‘The next paragraph clears up this difficulty. For once, quite exceptionally in his d symptomatology. A patient of
on. Go The recognition of this agency throws light on paranoi
work, Freud spells out the difference between sublimation and idealisati of having his thoughts known,
this type complains of being watched, of hearing voices,
complaint is justified. A power of
of being observed. They are right, Freud says, this
On.

our intentions, does really

DR LECL AIRE: So Freud has postulated the existence of the ideal ego, which he then this kind, watching, discovering and criticising all
life. Then we find...
calls the eyo-ideal, or form of the ideal ego. He says, from there. there is only one step exist. Indeed, it exists in every one of us in normal
to the searching out of the relations of the formation of the ideal to sublimation. Freud says that, if such an agency
That is not quite the intended meaning.
Sublimation is a process involving object libido. Incontrast, idealisation deals with the of thing that we would not yet have
exists, it is not possible that it is the sort
object which has been ennobled, elevated, and it does so without any modification in its with the censorship, as the examples
discovered. That's because he identifies it
nature. ldealisation is no less possible in the domain of ego libido than in that of object agency again in delusions of being
he chooses reveal. He comes upon this
who commands the
watched,'® in which it becomes confused with the person
libido

defined by Silberer as the

Once again. that amounts to saying that Freud places the two libidos on the subject's actions. He then recognises it in what is
subject ’s internal percep-
same plane functional phenomenon. According to Silberer, the
isms in so far as they are
tion of his own mental states, of his mental mechan
DR LECLALRE: The idealisation of the ego may coexist with a failed sublimation. The plays a formative role. The
functions, just when he is sliding into a dream,
formation of the ego-ideal heightens the demands of the ego and encourages repression in the sense in which symbolic
dream symbolically transposes this perception,
to the full. neous form of splitting of the
simply means imagistic. Here we have a sponta
plane of the e toward s this conception of
One is on the plane of the imaginary, and the other is on the subject. Freud always had an ambiguous attitud
the totality is extrem ely importa nt, and that
symbolic - since the demand of the Ichideal takes up its place within Silberer’s, saying both that this phenomenon
the manife statio n of desire in the
of demands of the law. it is nonetheless secondary in relation to
s somew here, '® that he himself
dream. Perhaps that is due to the fact, he remark
Dr LECLATRE: Hence sublimation opens up the expedient of satisfying this demand does not possess the import ance in
has a make-up such that this phenomenon
without tnvolving repression. people’ s. This vigilan ce of the ego
his own dreams that it may have in other
in the dream, is the guardi an of sleep,
That is successful sublimation. which Freud highlights, ever present
and very often ready
placed on the margins, as it were, of the dream’s activity,
De LECLAIRE: That's how he rounds off this short paragraph dealing with the l partici pation ofthe ego is, like all
on to say, to comment on it in its own right. This residua
relations of the ego-ideal to sublimation. It would not surprise us, he goes rubric of the censorship,
the agencies which Freud takes account of under the
if we were to tind a special psychical agency which performs this task of seeing say a symbol ic agency.
an agency which speaks, that is to
that narcissistic satisfaction from the ego-ideal is ensured and which, with this
by up a discussion of
end in view, constantly watches the actual [aktuelle] ego and measures it Dr LECLAIRE: A sort of synthesis then follows, in which he opens
agency, which would thus have The sense of self has three
that ideal.'? This hypothesi s of a special psychical the sense of self)? in the normal individual and the neurotic.
the super-ego. And that is
vigilance and security as its function, will eventually lead us to origins, which are ~ primary narcissistic satisfaction, the measure of success,
in which, he and the gratification received
Freud supports his argument with an example drawn from the psychoses to say the satisfaction of the desire for omnipotence,
he discusses of self which Freud seems to
says, this agency is clearly visible in delusions of being watched. '3 Before from love objects. These are the three roots of the sense
exists, we are discussion here. | would
the syndrome of being watched, he makes it clear that, if such an agency retain. It’s not necessary, [ think, to go into the detail of the
To me, it seems What seems to me to be
not ina position to discover it. but can only presuppo se’ it as such, prefer to return to the first of the complementary remarks.
he says of the ego consists in an
singularly important that, in this, his first way of introducing the super-ego, extremely important is this ~ The development
not exist, that one will not discover tt, but can only presuppos e it.
that this agency does
15 ‘We délire d'influence’. See p. 134 013 above.
'! GW X 162: Stud IE 62; SE XIV 95. » (1900a) GW H/T 508-9; Stud I] 484-5; Sb V 504-5.
' Tbid. ‘Beachtungs- oder richtiger Beobachtungswahnes', rendered
by Leclaire as ‘syndrome in SE as ‘self-regard’ (SE XIV 98 et
17 ‘sontiment de soi’. Freud’s term, Selbstgeftihl, is translated
following Séglas. it
influence’, a nosological conception found primarily in French psychiatry has been employed, despite its clumsiness, because
passim). The broader term ‘sense of self
The French verb Leclaire
Ereud’s verb, ‘agnuszieren’, is rendered by Strachey as ‘recognise’. reflects French and German more faithfully
employs is ‘supposer’ (assume, presuppose, SUPPose). See p. 152 n8 below.
 136 Freud's Papers on Technique 1953-1954 Ego-ideal and ideal ego 137

estrangement from primary narcissism and gives rise to a vigorous attempt to development of the person and a structuration of the ego. Something of this sort will
recover that state. This departure is brought about by means of the allow us to understand one another, because it is truly an ego which structures, but
displacement of libido on to an ego-ideal imposed from without, and satisfaction within a being which is developing.
is brought about from fulfilling this ideal.’* So the ego experiences a kind of
estrangement, passing via a middle term, which is the ideal, and returns later to its Yes, we are deep in structuration. Precisely at the point where the entire
primitive position. This movement seems to me to be the very image of development. analytic experience unfolds, at the joint of the imaginary and the symbolic. Just
now, Leclaire raised the question about the function of the image and the
QO. MANNONI: Its structuration. function of what he called the idea. We know very well that the idea never lives
Yes, structuration, that’s quite right. all by itself. It lives with all the other ideas, Plato has already taught us that.
In order to bring a little light to bear, let’s get the little apparatus going, the
Dr LECLAIRE: This displacement of the libido on to an ideal needs to be made more one I have been showing you these last few sessions.
precise because it may be one of two things ~— either this displacement of the libido
is carried out once again on to an image, on to.an image of the ego, that is to say on toa
r

form of the ego, which we call an ideal, since it is not similar to the one that is already 2
there, or that was there ~ or else we will apply the term ego-ideal to something going
beyond a form of the ego, to something which is quite properly an ideal, and which Let's start with the animal, an animal which is also an ideal, that is to say
comes closer to the idea, to the form. successful - the unsuccessful one is the animal we managed to capture. This
ideal animal gives us a vision of completeness, of fulfilment, because it
Agreed. presupposes the perfect fit, indeed the identity of the Innenwelt and the Umwelt.
Dr LECLAIRE: It’s in this sense that we come to perceive, it seems to me, all of the That's what makes this living form seductive, as its appearance harmoniously
richness of the sentence. But also its degree of ambiguity in as much as, if one talks of unfolds.
structuration, one then takes the ego-ideal to be the form of the ego-ideal. But that What does the development of instinctual functioning teach us in this
ist made clear in this text. respect? The extraordinary importance of the image. What comes into play in
releasing the complementary behaviour of the male and female sticklebacks?
M. Hyprotire: Could you read Freud's sentence again? Gestalten.
Dk LECLATRE: The development of the ego consists in an estrangement from Let us simplify matters, and consider this functioning solely at one given
primary narcissism and gives rise to a vigorous
moment. The male or female animal subject is captivated, as it were, by a
attempt to recover that state.
Gestalt. The subject literally identifies itself with the releasing stimulus. The
M. Hyprowire: But does one have take that to be the begetting of the ego-ideal? male is caught up in the zigzag dance on the basis of the relation that is set up
Dr LEcLArRe: No. Freud talks about the ego-ideal before. The estrangement is between himself and the image which governs the releasing of the cycle of his
brought about by means ofa displacement of the libido on to an ego-ideal imposed from
sexual behaviour. The female is caught up in the same way in this mutual
dance. This is not just the external manifestation of something which always
without. And satisfaction is brought about by fulfilling this ideal. Obviously, to the
has the aspect ofa dance, of two-body gravitation. Up to now that has been one
extent that this ideal is fulfilled...
of the most difficult problems for physics to solve, but it comes about quite
M. HyPPOLITE:. . . incapable of being fulfilled, because when all is said and done harmoniously in the natural world in the pairing relation. At that moment, the
that is the origin of transcendence, destructive and fascinating. subject is found to be completely identical to the image which governs the
Dr Lec. sire: Itisn't made explicit. however. The first time that he talks of the ideal complete releasing of a specific motor behaviour, which itself produces and
echoes back to the partner, in a certain style, the command which makes it
ego, it’s in order to say that self-love now moves towards this ideal ego.
engage in the other part of the dance.
O. MANNONE: In my opinion, one often gets the impression that we are speaking The natural appearance of this closed world of two gives us the image of the
several different languages. | think that one should perhaps distinguish between a conjunction of the object libido and the narcissistic libido. In effect, each
object’s attachment to the other is produced by the narcissistic fixation on this
* GW X 168; Stud Hl 67; SE XIV 100. image, because it is this image, and it alone, that it was expecting. That explains
 13s Freud’s Papers on Technique 1953-1954 Ego-ideal and ideal ego 139

why. in the world of living things, only a partner of the same species — we never use of more complicated ones. But you see that this really is the question which
pay sufficient attention to this —is able to release this special form which we call analysts distractedly ask themselves, as they vigorously — and publicly —
sexual behaviour. With very few exceptions, which must be placed within the scratch their heads.
margin of error which natural events display. Take up any article, it doesn’t matter which, for example the last one, which I
Let us say that. in the animal world, the entire cycle of sexual behaviour is read for your sake, by our dear friend Michael Balint — whose forthcoming visit
dominated by the imaginary. On the other hand, it is in sexual behaviour that to our Society I'll anhounce shortly. He asks the question — what is the end of
we tind the greatest possibilities of displacement occurring, even in animals, We the treatment? For the last session of our course this term, I would like — perhaps
already make use of it for experimental purposes when we present the animal I won't do it, |don’t know, it will depend whether I'm feeling inspired —l would
with a lure. a false image, a male partner which is only a shadow bearing the like to talk to you about the termination of analysis. It’s a jump, but doesn’t our
dominant characteristics of the said animal. At the time of the manifestations of scrutiny of the mechanisms of resistance and of the transference allow it?
the phenotype that, in many species, occur at this biological moment which Well, what is the end of the treatment? Is it analogous to the end ofa natural
calls for sexual behaviour, the offering of this lure is sufficient to release the process? Genital love — this Eldorado promised to analysts, which we quite
sexual behaviour. The possibility of displacement, the illusory, imaginary imprudently promise to our patients — is it a natural process? Isn't it, on the
dimension, is essential to everything pertaining to the order of sexual contrary, simply a series of cultural approximations which are only capable of
behaviour. being realised in certain cases? Is analysis, its termination, thus dependent on
Is this true for man, yes or no? This image could be it, this Idealich we've just all sorts of contingencies?
been talking about. Why not? Still, it wouldn't occur to us to call this lure the
“<7 mT ee
Idealich. So where are we going to put it? Here my little apparatus reveals its
Plane
virtues. mirror
What are its implications? I've already explained to you the physical
phenomenon of the real image, which can be produced by the spherical mirror,
be seen in its place, be inserted into the world of real objects, be accommodated
in it at the same time as real objects, even bringing to these real objects an
imaginary disposition, namely by including, excluding, locating and complet- Concave mirror

ing them.
This is nothing other than the imaginary phenomenon which I just spelt out
in detail for you in the animal. The animal makes a real object coincide with the
image within him. And, what is more, as is indicated in Freud’s texts, | would
add that the coincidence of the image with a real object strengthens it, gives it
substance, embodiment. At this moment, behaviour is released, such that the
subject will be guided towards its object, with the image as go-between.
Does this happen in many? Simplified schema of the two mirrors
In man, as we know, an eminent disorder characterises the manifestations of
the sexual function. Nothing in it adapts. This image, around which we, we What is the point? ~ ifnot to see what the function of the other, ofthe human
psychounalysts, revolve, presents, whether in the neuroses or in the perver- other, is, in the adequation of the imaginary and the real.
sions, a sort of fragmentation, of rupture, of breaking up, of lack of adaptation, Here we'll take up the little schema again. The finishing touch I added to it in
of inadequation. Here we come upon a game of hide and seek between the our last session constitutes an essential element of what I am trying to
image and its normal object — ifindeed we adopt the ideal ofa norm at all in the demonstrate. The real image can only be seen in a consistent fashion within a
functioning of sexuality. From then on how can we find a way of representing limited field of the real space of the apparatus, the field in front of the apparatus,
the mechanism whereby this disordered imagination finally succeeds, in spite as constituted by the spherical mirror and the inverted bouquet.
of everything, in fulfilling its function? We have placed the subject at the edge of the spherical mirror. But we know
| am trying to use simple terms so as to guide your thinking. We could make that the seeing of an image in the plane mirror is strictly equivalent for the
140 Freud’s Papers on Technique 1953-1954 Ego-ideal and ideal ego 14)

subject to an image of the real object, which would be seen by a spectator In other words, it's the symbolic relation which defines the position of the
beyond this mirror, at the very spot where the subject sees his image. We can subject as seeing. It is speech, the symbolic relation, which determines the
therefore replace the subject by a virtual subject, VS, placed inside the cone greater or lesser degree of perfection, of completeness, of approximation, of the
which limits the possibility of the illusion — that’s the field x'y’. The apparatus imaginary. This representation allows us to draw the distinction between the
that I've invented shows, then, how, in being placed at a point very close to the Idealich and the Ichideal, between the ideal ego and the ego-ideal. The ego-ideal
real image, one is nevertheless capable of seeing it. in a mirror, as a virtual governs the interplay of relations on which all relations with others depend.
image. That is what happens in man. And on this relation to others depends the more or less satisfying character of
What follows from this? A very special symmetry. In fact, the virtual subject, the imaginary structuration.
rellection of the mythical eye, that is to say the other which we are, is there A schema like this one shows you that the imaginary and the real act on the
where we first saw our ego - outside us, in the human form. This form is outside same level. To understand this, all we have to do is to make another little
ofus, notin so far as it is so constructed as to captate?? sexual behaviour, but in improvement in the apparatus. Think of the mirror as a pane of glass. You'll see
so far as it is fundamentally linked to the primitive impotence of the human yourselfin the glass and you'll see the objects beyond it. That's exactly how itis
being. The human being only sees his form materialised, whole, the mirage of it’s a coincidence between certain images and the real. What else are we
himself, outside of himself. This notion doesn’t figure as yet in the article we are talking about when we refer to an oral, anal, genital reality, that is to say a
studying, it only emerges later in Freud's work. specific relation between our images and images? This is nothing other than the
What the subject, the one who exists, sees in the mirror is an image, whether images of the human body, and the hominisation of the world, its perception in
sharp or broken up, lacking in consistency, incomplete. This depends on its terms of images linked to the structuration of the body. The real objects, which
position in relation to the real image. Too much towards the edge, and you'll see pass via the mirror, and through it, are in the same place as the imaginary
it poorly. Everything depends on the angle of incidence at the mirror. It’s only object. The essence of the image is to be invested by the libido. What we call
from within the cone that one can have a clear image. libidinal investment is what makes an object become desirable, that is to say
So whether you see the image more or less clearly depends on the inclination how it becomes confused with this more or less structured image which, in
ofthe mirror. As for the virtual spectator, the one who becomes your substitute diverse ways, we carry with us.
through the fiction of the mirror in order to see the real image, all that’s So this schema allows you to represent to yourself the difference which Freud
necessary is for the plane mirror to be inclined in a specific way for him to be in always carefully drew, and which often remains puzzling to readers, between
the field in which one sees very poorly. From this fact alone, you will also see the topographical regression and genetic, archaic regression, regression in history
nage in the mirror very poorly. Let's say that this represents the uneasy as we are also taught to designate it.
accommodation of the imaginary in man. Depending on the inclination of the mirror, the image in the spherical mirror
Now let us postulate that the inclination of the plane mirror is governed by is more or less successfully set up at the centre or on the edges. One might even
the voice of the other. This doesn't happen at the level of the mirror-stage, but it conceive of it being modified. How does the primitive mouth get transformed, in
happens subsequently through our overall relation with others — the symbolic the end, into a phallus? — it would perhaps be easy to knock up a little model of
relation. From that point on, you can grasp the extent to which the regulation entertaining physics for this problem. This shows you that, in man, no truly
of the imaginary depends on something which is located in a transcendent effective and complete imaginary regulation can be set up without the
fashion, as M. Hyppolite would put it — the transcendent on this occasion being intervention of another dimension. Which is what analysis, mythically at least,
nothing other than the symbolic connection between human beings. aims at.
What is the symbolic connection? Dotting our i's and crossing our t’s, itis the What is my desire? What is my position in the imaginary structuration? This
fact that socially we define ourselves with the law as go-between. It is through position is only conceivable in so far as one finds a guide beyond the imaginary,
the exchange of symbols that we locate our different selves [mois] in relation to on the level of the symbolic plane, of the legal exchange which can only be
one another — you, you are Mannoni, and me Jacques Lacan, and we have a embodied in the verbal exchange between human beings. This guide governing
certain symbolic relation, which is complex, according to the different planes the subject is the ego-ideal.
on which we are placed, according to whether we're together in the police This distinction is absolutely essential, and it allows us to make sense of what
station, or together in this hall, or together travelling. happens in analysis on the imaginary plane, which we call transference.
'y See p. 146 n2 below. To get hold of it ~ this is the value of Freud’s text — one has to understand
142 Freud's Papers on Technique 1953-1954

XI
what Verliebtheit is. what love is. Love is a phenomenon which takes place on
the imaginary level, and which provokes a veritable subduction of the
symbolic, a sort of annihilation, of perturbation of the function of the ego-ideal.
Love reopens the door — as Freud put it, not mincing his words — to perfection.
The Ichideal, the ego-ideal, is the other as speaking, the other in so far as he
Zeitlich-Entwicklungsgeschichte
bas a symbolic relation to me [moi], which, within the terms of our dynamic AL
THE IMAGE OF DEATH
manipulation, is both similar to and different from the imaginary libido.
THE SLEEPERS REAL SE
Symbolic exchange is what links human beings to each other, that is, it is
THE NAME, THE LAW
speech, and it makes it possible to identify the subject. That isn't a metaphor —
EROM THE FUTURE TO THE PAST
the symbol begets intelligent beings, as Hegel says.
‘The Ichideal, considered as speaking, can come to be placed in the world of
objects on the level of the Idealich, that is, on the level where this narcissistic
captation which Freud talks about over and over again throughout this text
can take place. You can rest assured that when this confusion occurs, the
it was Alain who pointed out that no one counts the number of columns on his
apparatus can't be regulated any longer. In other words, when you're in love,
mental image of the Pantheon. To which | would have liked to have answered
you are mad, as ordinary language puts it.
him — except the architect of the Pantheon. So here we are, ushered through
I would like at this point to give an illustration of love at first sight. Remember
this little gateway, into the relations between the real, the imaginary and the
the first time Werther sees Lotte, as she is cuddling a child. It’s an entirely
symbolic.
salislying image for the Anlehnungstypus on the anaclitic plane. It is the way the
object coincides with Goethe's hero's fundamental image that triggers off?° his
fatal attachment - next time we must clarify why this attachment is 1
fundamentally fatal. That's what love is. It’s one’s own ego that one loves in
M. Hyppo_ite: Can one ask a question about the structure of the optical image? |
love, one’s own ego made real on the imaginary level.
want to ask for some material specifications. If I've correctly understood the material
People go crazy thinking about this problem — how can a transference be so
structure, there is a spherical mirror, and the real image of the object is inverted in the
easily generated in neurotics, when they are so fettered when it comes to love?
middle of the mirror. This image would be on a screen. Instead of being formed on a
The production of transference has an absolutely universal character, truly
screen, we can look at it with the eye.
automatic, whereas the demands of love are, on the contrary, as everyone
knows, so specific. . . It’s not every day that you come upon something which Exactly. Because it’s a real image, in as much as the eye accommodates itself
is constructed so as to give you the very image of your desire. How is it, then, within a specific plane, designated by the real object. In the amusing
that within the analytic relation, the transference, which has the same nature experiment which IT drew inspiration from, there was an inverted bouquet
as love ~ Freud says it in the text which I gave Granoff to go through -- arises, which was placed in the neck of a real vase. In so far as the eye accommodates
one can say even before the analysis has started? To be sure, it isn’t perhaps quite itself to the real image, it sees it. It is clearly delineated in as much as the light
the same thing before and during analysis. rays all converge on the same point in virtual space, that is to say in as much as,
{see that the clock ticks on, andI don’t want to keep you after quarter to two. for every point on the object, there corresponds a point on the image.
! will start off with these questions next time — how does the function of
M. Hyppouire: If the eye is placed within the luminous cone, it sees the image. If
transterence, triggered off?° almost automatically in the analysand/analyst
not, it doesn’t see it.
relation » before it has even begun, on account of the presence and function of
analysis - how does it allow us to bring into play the imaginary function of the The experiment proves that, for it to be perceived, the observer must be not very
ldealic hie far removed from the axis of the spherical mirror, within a sort of continuation
of the outward curvature of this mirror.
31 March 1954
M. Hyppovire: In that case, if we introduce a plane mirror, the plane mirror gives a
2) “declenche’. See p. 121 ne above. virtual image of the real image we are considering as the object.