Psychoanalysis-Donny Peters

Tenets of Lacanian Psychoanalysis

The unconscious is structured like a language

o The unconscious can be symbolically represented
o Communication acts as the seismograph of the unconscious
The Object a or the little other
o Desires main task is to keep itself circulating
o The objet a is perceived as a missing piece, shows that Other is not clearly distinguished from
self. Value comes from being perceived as a missing part of the subject self
o The meaning is in the pursuit. The pursuit of the objet a is the condition for the production of
artthe enjoyment of otherness and the enjoyment of the journey over the product. The objet
a grants an excuse for the pursuit. There is a reason to pursue otherness when you see
yourself lacking
o The missing piece is retroactively given. It was not necessarily ever missing. Its just a
perception.
The Objet a the big other
o Directs and controls the acts of individuals and can be personified or reified in a single agent
Anything you give yourself away to
God, school, your parents, the college you desire for
This determines our behavior what we enjoy and what we dont enjoy
o A set of unwritten rules that effectively regulate our speech and acts, the ultimate guarantee
of Truth
This is necessary in order for some form of social cohesion
But this must be mixed with a perception of the outside
There is no big other there is no a priori formal structural scheme exempted from
historical contingenciesthere are only contingent, fragile, inconsistent
configurations
The constitutive lack shapes the way we desire objects
The lack is the perception that when we view the other we see something missing within ourselves
We are always incomplete, thus we will strive to fill this lack with what we feel other have we
perceive as complete
o Friends characteristics are those we desire for ourselves
It is impossible to fill this lack. We perceive obtaining certain goals, objects etc as acts of filling this
lack
If we obtain the object we think will fulfill the lack, we will no longer desire the object in the same
way, we will recognize that it isnt what we really wanted

The Lacanian Triad

The Imaginary
o Similar to Freuds ideal ego this is the idealized view of the subject
o This is a deliberate act by the subject to maintain its attachment to either to her own ego or to
an object of desire
o Consciously the subject doesnt fully recognize how he creates this idealized view of the
subject or object. If so then she would no longer believe in it
o It is only a question of whether or not we allow the imaginary that we create within ourselves
to be destructive
The Symbolic or symbolic order (also known as the law or symbolic register)
o Similar to Freuds ego ideal
o This is The Big Other
o The order of things, the law, social norms, expectations
o The symbolic creates the conditions that allow for the fantasy of the imaginary to exist and to
avoid the Traumatic real
o This gives us a sense of organization
o Examples of structures that determine the symbolic: government, church, pop culture, social
organizations, etc
The Real vs Reality
o Reality: fantasy world constructed through language/signifiers. Our idea of the real
o Real: a materiality of existence beyond language and thus beyond expressibility and signifiers
The world absent our connection to it
o Somewhat similar to Freuds super ego. This is the absence of symbolization
o The impossibility of an imaginary recognition of the ego or an object
o This is the psychotic part of the unconscious that we repress through our imaginary and
symbolic identification
o Everything is not discourse. The real suggests the idea that reality is socially constructed is
fine within the realm of the conscious symbolic, however there is a condition of existence
that is not socially constructed
Desire=fantasy therefore desire=lack
What is agency for Lacanian Psychoanalysis
o To change a subjects position within the social she must confront the real. This does not
mean that the subject will ever enter the realm of the real
o You can change your material reality
o We understand that big other that controls us
What is the root of our oppression

Ideology and Lacan Psychoanalysis

Lacan Critiques Interpellation

o Interpellation-You are within my authority when I acknowledge you within my authority
o The idea of the call-when you are within my system of authority
o Interpellation is only an explanation of the symbolic expression of consciousness
o Interpellation does not take into account the real. Identity is simply determined through
symbolic markers (being interpelled into the social) but also through resistance to the real
Master Slave Dichotomy
o More representative
o Master: our desire, those who control the access, means, production to our desire
o Slave: The subject who desires
o The master exerts its authority over the slave but the slave must recognize the masters
authority over his/her subject position (the symbolic)
False Consciousness
o They do not know it but they are doing it Marx in Capital
o People participate in systems of ideology but we dont realize we are doing so
False Consciousness and Agency
o How do we escape the ideological apparatus that dominates our lives?
o Marxs answer is unmasking or demasking
o This means that once the subject is exposed to the truth she will act to end her association
with that ideology
Zizek and Sloterdijk says no to False Consciousness
o 1. Just because a subject is exposed to the truth doesnt mean he will change his behavior
The Poor republican
o 2. If one does not reject one ideological system, the subject will unknowingly fall prey to
another ideological system until another truth teller comes forththis creates a circular cycle
for agency where the subject has no agency but to reject one system over another
Enlightened False Consciousness
o They know very well what they are doing, but they are still doing it
o We are not duped, we recognize what we are doing and we do not find it net beneficial to
change even if we are momentarily duped we will eventually discover the truth
EFC and Agency
o The subject isnt a nave one, the subject is a cynical person
o The subject does not believe she has the agency to change the ideological apparatus therefore
she does the best she can to live a good life
o The subject is more important than the ideological system. Agency for enlightened false
consciousness means that the subject has a choice as to which ideological system they live
within
Key Lacan Words
o Fantasy-creates in disguised form what it attempts to conceal
o First Veil-The fantasy mediates between symbolic register and the real or the pre-symbolic
real and enables us to live our desire
o Second Veil-Intersubjectivity-what others want from me
Inter-subjectivity
The Subjects entry into the symbolic register
The Agalma that which gives value to me

o
o

Third Veil-narratives occlusion of contradiction

Things inconsistent with the rest of the way that we present ourselves
Overcoming and whitewashing contradictions
Antagonistic aspects of the present are separated by the temporal structure of
narrative
This picture avoids that strategy by staging contradiction safely
The Fourth Veil
After the fall
Fantasy recreates the installation of the Law, locating the subject within it rather than
leaving it outside
Fifth Veil-The impossible gaze
Fantasy recreates the symbolic register instantaneously relocating the subject forming
new coordinations within the social fabric. But once narrativised a moment of birth is
generated to account for this changeone the subject sees
Sixth Veil-the inherent transgression
Here art reveals the censorship concealing the fantasmic underpinnings of the
symbolic order
Detach yourself from these sorts of values
Seventh Veil-the empty gesture
The interaction of the symbolic register and its fantasmic underpinnings result in the
existence of unwritten rules which must be obeyed
Jouissance
pleasure plus
How we produce pleasure
How we symbolically understand it
Two types
Other Jouissance
o A belief in something absolute, an absolute truth or deity (religion,
belief in country, a social group, sports team, family, etc.)
o If you obey the Other Jouissance you will be rewarded and if not you
will be punished
o The logic of the Other Jouissance has on the subject is beyond logic.
One is willing to violate social norms, morals, etc. to serve this
jouissance
o It is impossible to have reciprocal love
One will always have a sense of responsibility to the other
Fallible Jouissance
o This Kind of pleasure always disappoints
o There will always be more issues to fill in what pleasure we might
have
o Our imaginary identification makes the object appear attainable but
it never is
Master Signifier
An Ideal which we have failed to achieve
ROB are master signifiers
The center doesnt really exist
Despite failing to achieve this ideal we organize our behavior based on this ideal
Similar concept to Derridas there is no center

Example: Whiteness
o Melancholy
Freud: Mourning=grieving over a lost object
Melancholy=an inability to move on from the grieving process
Melancholy is not simply the refusal to let go of an object, it is the confusion
between lack and loss
We dont have a sense of proper mourning over the lack and what is lost
Lack is how our desire is fundamentally structured, is the thing we never had and
never could
Loss is something we perceive that we psychologically possess and physical loss
o What occurs during Melancholy
We believe that our lack is what we lost and what we lost is our lack
We believe that the lost object structures our desire, when our lack created the
conditions for us to desire the object
Thus the melancholic believes that because she lost someone close to her that she can
no longer desire. But what is really happening is that the subject is frustrated to the
point of sadness because she cannot find a way to fill that lack
o Inner Passivity
Subordinate Ego
I am passive through the other
Give your responsibility to the other
Enabler and victim at the same time
We hold on to our helplessness
We will continue to suffer when we know we dont have to bare responsibility
Enjoy suffering-embracing suffering means you foreclose your responsibility on the
issue
o Death Drive
Thantos
The drive to go back where we came from
We want to go back to our non existence
Destructive: We have our tragic flaw, this drive is the need to destroy ourselves, self
sabotage
Psychoanalysis is a self discovery process
The alt isnt telling them that they need to change but rather that you are asking them questions to
have them confront their notions
Are you placing this identity/K on me?
o Psychoanalysis is not attaching ourselves to them
They have to at some level confront the real
o They are detached from the symbolic and the real