Lacan: “The mirror stage as forming function Ego”

Lacan speaks of the mirror stage, which occurs between the six and the first eighteen
months, during which the child anticipates the mastery of his body unit through an
identification with the image of such and the perception of their own image in a
mirror. When the child is identified in the mirror shows a first act of intelligence and
establishes a libidinal relationship with body image, begin to develop a subjectivity
and a belief in an imaginary order. The child saw his image in the mirror feels sung
by her and relate to her through gestures and the relationship with the
environment. The child is recognized in the mirror before reaching their body
movements. The libidinal relationship with the image, creates certain conflicts,
represents the paranoiac knowledge because it does not distinguish it from the
unreal image real, know yourself, the image in the mirror looks like another, the child
is perceived as fragmented and generation ego begins to take for this ignorance,
where the child loses its identity and ideas about himself. When the child recognizes
that the image in the mirror is the same knowledge of the self is given.

The mirror stage is an identification with an image that at first was thought of another,
the image is received with joy by the child, as compared to its body without motor
skills, this is complete, as a gestalt, that form is more constituent constituted solides
allowing that body uncontrolled movements. The relationship of motor incoordination
with the perceived image as Gestalt generates a rivalry with this and an aggressive
tension between the child and the image, the anguish caused by this fragmentation
creates identification with the image and this leads to form the Ego. Lacan points out
that the primary way in which the infant is identified, should be designated as ideal
ego, to make it go, he says, in a known record: the secondary identifications, which
have the function to give the subject a "normalization libidinal ". Thus the body image
in the mirror of the Ideal Ego, is the support of the primary identification of the child
with his fellow man and constitutes the source of secondary identifications that will
allow the subject, establish and organize their relationship with culture. But the
important point that Lacan wants to emphasize here is that this primordial form
"places the instance of the Ego, even since before its social determination, in a line
of fiction, irreducible forever by the individual alone"

Lacan highlights the relationship that humans and animals have with their image as
in some cases the mere fact of seeing an image in some animals may generate
certain behaviors. The mirror stage establishes a relationship between the inside of
the body with external reality. Lacan says that sense of fragmentation of the body is
manifested in the images of castration. Against such imaginary reductionism, Lacan
opted for the use of the symbolic as the only way to leave the disabling fixations of
the imaginary. It is said that this stage, founded for the child a first mode of link with
the social. His desire is mediated by the other 's desire and ego makes a device
whose function is self - preservation, referred this to the dangers that comes into play
subsistence. This organization will depend on how the subject passes through the
Edipo complex. For Lacan, it is the passage from the imaginary order, the symbolic
order. This primary narcissism, has an erotic character and one aggressive. It is
erotic because the subject feels a strong attraction to the gestalt of his image; but it
is also aggressive because the character of this entire mirror image, in stark contrast
to the fragmented incoordination real body of the subject, appearing threatened with
disintegration. Thus the narcissistic relationship constitutes the imaginary dimension
of all human relationships, and aggression and eroticism will underlie all forms of
identification, constituting an essential characteristic of narcissism. The mirror stage
then is this primary identification that gives rise to the ideal Ego.

Lacan speaks of the supposed autonomy of the Ego, which is nothing but illusion, to
the extent that, as the ego construction that is formed by identification with the mirror
image, this is just the place where the subject alienates of himself, becoming
another; so that the autonomy of the ego is simply a narcissistic illusion of mastery. If
something is autonomous, it is the symbolic order, and not the ego of the subject; he
is essentially another, is alienated. The ego plays a role, a "function of ignorance"
which, as indicated by Lacan characterizes all defense mechanisms. What
fundamentally unknown the ego are the symbolic determinants of their subjectivity,
the symbolic determination of his being. Ignorance is not imaginary recognition of a
symbolic knowledge that the subject has somewhere.