Name- of the- Father in Lacanian Psychoanalysis and in JewishTradition

Abstract

This paper will focus ontheway theJewish theological idea of the hidden name of G-d and its verbal

expression inthe Bible can shed new light on two of the most enigmatic notions of the Jacques

Lacan’sschool of psychoanalysis, namely the ‘Name-of- the-Father’ and the etiology of psychosis. As

Lacan unabashedly said:“Maybe in ten years, people will understand my work”[ CITATION Jor14 \l 1033 ].

Indeed, his sentiment feels true. His work is complex: full of paradoxes, associations, linguistic,

theological, and anthropological references and literary allusions. After developing his theory of

language and psychosis, Lacan broke ties with thepsychiatric establishment and founded a new school of

theory and practice. Like Freud, Lacan challenged the classic western tradition of evidence- based

diagnostic practices and continued to develop his unique approach to understanding the human psychic

reality.

Many clinicians find it difficult to apply Lacan’s work to their practices.His concepts are perceived to be

extremely abstract and removed from clinical practice. This paper reflects our attempt to close this gap

and build the bridge between theory and practice, while elaborating on the Jewish theological doctrine of

the Name of the Divine and the function of language as a tool to connect to Divinity.

Contrary to many Lacanian scholars, the primary author turned to Lacan through clinical work at the

office. The following clinical vignette will shed a light on the practical clinical implication of Lacanian

theory of Paternity in general and “Foreclosure of Name-of-the-Father in particular. In her clinical

practice she is seeing a couple relocated to US from another country. They came to the therapyoffice in
the midst of the conflict. The wife had experienced homesickness, longed to return home and had extreme

difficulties in adjusting to American life. Client’s relocation to US has triggered her childhood trauma of

losing her father at age 13. She described him as a powerful figure in her family life: the provider, the

caretaker, the source of client’s emotional comfort. After his sudden death, at age 13, my client’s mother

became severely depressed, quit her job and failed to provide maternal care for her three children. My

client became a surrogate mother for her 5 year old younger sister doing all the cooking, cleaning,taking

her younger sister to school and from school, performing all household chores. The patient recalled her

adolescent years with a sense of loneliness, social disconnect, severe and an overwhelming sense of

responsibility. At the age 19 P and her family relocated to Israel where she briefly dated and married her

current husband who became to be her main source of support and comfort from the early days of their

marriage until their relocation to US. She associated her severe distress that she experienced as a result of

moving to US, with her husband’s inability to continue providing that protective function.

By contrast,her husband had experienced life in US as an important milestone to his economic and

financial success. He perceived life in US as an opportunity forhis family and refused to return to their

home country. Prior to the season of Jewish holidays associated with family and home, the wife started to

experience severe anxiety, which devolved intoa psychotic breakdown. The content of her psychosis

focused on the anticipation of a terrorist attack at her workplace, fantasies of persecution by the patient’s

husband and grandiose delusion of saving the world by preventing a suicide bombing. In spite of severity

of her psychosis, the patient organized very quickly and came back to work within a few days.

Considering the severity of her psychosis and the quickness of her recovery, her clinical presentation

posed apuzzling question regarding the etiology of her psychotic breakdown to which we will return later.

Full Name of G-D in the Bible and Rabbinical Sources

The reference to the full name of G-d (Tetragrammaton) representing the essence of the Divineappears

early in the Bible. From the beginning, this name is associated with revelation and profound sacred
meaning concealed evenfromthe Patriarchs. This notion is emphasized in G-d’s revelation to Moses:

“And God [Elohim] spoke to Moses, and He said to him: ‘I am the Lord. And I appeared to Abraham, to

Isaac, and to Jacob, as El Shaddai, but by my name Hashem I did not make Myselfknown to

them.”(Exodus: 6, 2-3, According to Masoretic Text, JPS 1917 Edition). At first glance this statement

sounds paradoxical, as there are many statements in Genesis where G-d reveals himself to the Patriarchs

by the name Hashem ‫י ה ו ה‬.For instance, Abraham uses that name while explaining to his servant that his

mission to find a wife for Isaac would be a blessed deed by "Hashem, the God of heaven, who took me

from my father's house."(Genesis: 24, 18, According to Masoretic Text, JPS 1917 Edition).Furthermore,

Jacob described his prophetic dream of angels ascending and descending the ladder as the

acknowledgement of the existenceof Hashem.He reacts to the Divine revelation by proclaiming: “Surely,

Hashem is in its place, and I knew it not.” Rashi, the canonic medieval commentator to the Bible Text,

tried to resolve this problem by explaining that contrary to the Patriarchs to whom the Almighty revealed

his mere name, G-d revealed to Moses not the just His name but the essence, power, and attributes

associated with it. He told Moses: “I will make all my goodness pass before you and I shall invoke the

name of Hashem in Your presence.”(Exodus: 33, 18-19, According to Masoretic Text, JPS 1917

Edition).Bible scholar Jim Chenwrote that: “G-d promises to reveal to Moses the secret of the power

contained in His nameHashem, the power of His attributes of invincibility, of bringing to fruition His

every wish: Hashem in the sense of ‘It will be’.”[ CITATION Coh09 \l 1033 ]

The revelation to Moses came with the warning not to misuse G-d’s name and not to pronounce it

differently from the way it was writtenin theScriptures. The following quotation vividly illustrated this:

“You shall not misuse the Name of Hashem Your G-D, for Hashem will not hold anyone guiltless who

misuses his name.”(Exodus: 20,7, According to Masoretic Text, JPS 1917 Edition). Jewish tradition

insisted on pronouncing the letter ‘kaf” instead of letter “hey”when G-d’s name is used in colloquial

conversation. Various Babylonian Talmud sources point out that even currently the name of G-d is

written with ‘yud’and ‘hey’and pronounced with ‘kaf’ and ‘aleph’, however, in the future world the
written and the oral version will be same. During the period of the First and the Second Temple only the

priests at the Holy Temple were allowed to pronounce the Full name, during the blessings of the nation

and during the Yom Kippur atonement. The parameters of Yom Kippur services were strictly defined.

The High Priest spiritually prepared himself for an entire week, woreaspecial garment dedicated solely to

the Day of Atonement, and performed allof the rituals by himself. During this service he changed his

clothes five times and each time performed ritual immersion. The High Priest was allowed to say the Full

Name only at the special section of the Temple known as “The Holy of Holiness.” Even the High Priest

was not allowed to pronounce the Name in any other place. Talmud describes that the power and the risk

involved in pronouncing the Full Name were so high that after the successful completion of the day the

High Priest conducted a feast with his close circle to celebrate the fact that his service was accepted by G-

d and the nation was granted forgiveness. BabylonianTalmud (Tractate Yoma:Folio 52, page b)

mentions that, indeed, many High Priests died throughout the Yom Kippur Service especially during the

Second Temple when the spiritual level of the nation was much lower.Talmud clearly states that the

proclaiming of the Full Name by spiritually impure and unprepared High Priest could lead do a death.

BabylonianTalmud TractateAvodahZarah mentions the person who publically pronounced the Full Name

for the purpose of learning would be burnt. Rabbi Akivah states that those who spell the Full Name

wouldnot inherit the Future World.(Tractate AvodaZarah: Folio 18, page a).Hidden, the Holy Name

remains inthe nation’s consciousness as the definitive manifestation of G-d’s ultimate power to protect

and to redeem. This is the state of awareness without knowing. The following quote from Isaiah

emphasized that the nation’s immediate salvation and the future redemptionwill happen as a result of

unlimited power of G-d’s name. The Name will guarantee the nation’s immediate salvationand future

redemption:“But now,this is what the LORD says - He who created you, Jacob, he who formed you, Israel.

Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name;you are mine. When you pass

through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over

you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze.For I am

the LORD your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior; I give Egypt for your ransom,Cush and Seba in
your stead.”(Isaiah 43,1, According to Masoretic Text, JPS Edition). Contrary to the Tetragrammaton, G-

d’s other names represent his attributes, the different aspects of Divine revelation. In Midrash Tanhuma:

“R. Abba b. Mammel said: God said to Moses: ‘Thou wished to know Myname . Well, I am called

according to My work; sometimes I am called ‘Almighty God’, ‘Lord of Hosts’, ‘God’, ‘Lord’. When I

am judging created beings, I am called “God”,’ and when I am waging war against the wicked, I am

called “Lord of Hosts”. When I suspend judgment for a man’ssins, I am called “El Shadday.”(Midrash

Tanhuma, Exodus 20).

The prayer as a substitute for Holy Temple

According to Jewish tradition, prayer became the main bridge between the human and Divine after the

destruction of Holy Temple, since priestly sacrifice and prophetic vision ceased to exist. The sages of

Talmud clearly articulated this transformation claiming:“What is the prayer? This is the sacrifice of the

heart”(Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Brachot:Folio 33,a).Therefore, the discourse of language (the

prayer) became the main tool mitigating the absence of Divine presence in the world. It closes the

gap between the individual and the Divine.Parallel to the Jewish religious practice,the language

mitigated between the unconscious and the subject allows the subject to access the “absence”, to access

the unconscious.Following Freud’s footsteps, Jacques Lacan noted that language stands at the heart of the

psychoanalytic experience[CITATION Jaq13 \l 1033 ]as the main instrument of cure. Lacan noted that on

the surface, psychoanalysis could be easily perceived as magical thinking since in both practices language

is an instrument of deep transformation. However,this similarity is deceptive, as the use of language is

very different in psychoanalytic discourse. In 1957, Lacan gave his famous lecture‘The Instance of the

Letter in the Unconscious, or Reason Since Freud (1957).’Inthe opening remark of this lecture,Lacan

declared:“And how could a psychoanalyst of today not realize that the speech is the key to that truth,

when his whole experience must find speech alone, its instrumental, its context, its material and even the
background noise of the uncertainties. As our title suggests what the psychoanalytic experience discovers

in the unconsciousness is the whole structure of the language.”[CITATION Jaq77 \l 1033 ]

Lacan perception of the unconscious and the Desire

Lacan argues that the concept of the unconscious was misunderstood by Freud’s followers. The

unconscious is not the set of instincts (not primordial and not instinctual) but primarily linguistic

phenomena.The unconscious is a basic knowledge, which is inaccessible to the subject contrary to the

conscious side of the mind. Nevertheless, evenif inaccessible on the conscious level,this knowledge

remains part of the psychic experience of the subject. The unconscious is not a trace of sand on a beach

that disappears without a mark when the wind blows. It could be compared to the book in the library

stored according to the modern system of cataloging. Even if the book is handed to the specific library

reader, it remains part of the library catalog, the book remains in the system, and its place on the shelf

continues to be reserved. Even though the unconscious is not accessible tothe subject, it has a profound

effect on him, it remains there, and its absence marks the experience of the subject. The subject continues

to experience the gap, the notion that something is missing. This notion could be compared to the

concealed Full Name of G-d. Even though the Full Name is completely concealed from human

knowledge, the person is aware of its absence and continues to experience longing for the revelation. The

formation of the subject’s unconscious is characterized by the presence of the subject’s desire. The

subject’s desire isa leading force ofthe subject’s experience; it could never be satisfied on the instinctual

level and always remains the desire for the Other. In his work in 1957- 1958[ CITATION Jac92 \l 1033 ]

Lacan crystallized the differences between the concepts of desire, demand and need. Need is a purely

biological instinct, the hunger that emerges according to the needs of the body, and abates completely

when satisfied. The infant born in helplessness is not able to satisfy his own needs, and hence depends on

the Other to help satisfy them. The infant expresses his needs vocally;they are articulated as demands,

requiring attention of the Other tosatisfy them. The presence of the Other becomes an importance initself,

as the Other symbolizes the Other’s Love. As Dylan Evans[CITATION Ala96 \l 1033 ] pointed out in the
dictionary of Lacanian terminology:“the demand has the double function representing both the

articulation of a need and a demand for love.However, when theOther can provide the needs satisfaction,

the Other cannot provide the unconditional love, which the subject craves.” Even after the need

articulated in demand had been satisfied, the other facet of demand – the longing for unconditional love

remains unsatisfied. This unsatisfied remaining aspect was defined by Lacan as a desire. As the

subject’s desire is never fully satisfied, the subject caries the fundamental split between inaccessible and

accessible, between consciousness and unconsciousness, between the restriction of the law and the

driving power of the desire. For Lacan, the Desire is always the Desire for the Other in general, andthe

primordial desire is alwaysthe desire for the Mother in particular. Initially the child is at the mercy of the

desire forthe mothert thus, the entrance of the Father articulating the Law symbolizing the subject’s

resolution of theOedipus complex.

The unconscious is structured like a language

As the object of Desire for the other is a leading force of the unconsciousness, Lacan was interested

inexploring the phenomenon of the unconsciousness as a particular structure. This was the famous

phrase that Lacan used at his XI th Seminar in 1950[CITATION Jac921 \l 1033 ]Starting in 1950 the notion

of language occupies the main position in Lacanian psychoanalytic thought. The English word language

corresponds to two French words: langue andlangage..The word “langue” in French is generally

associated with the specific language (English or French), while the word “langage” refers to the system

of language in general. As it was stated by Evans the langagebecomes the single paradigm of all

structures. The focal point of Lacan’s interest would be the ‘language’, the language as a system and as a

structure. As it was stated by Evans (Evans, 1996) the language becomes a single paradigm of all

structures. While articulating his groundbreaking view, that the unconscious is structure as language,

Lacan incorporates the ideas of Ferdinand de Saussure, the renowned linguist of the beginning of 20 th

century, and the philosopher Pierce main contributors to the semiotic approach to language. . Both of

them viewedlanguage as asystem composed ofdifferent elements. According to[ CITATION CSP98 \l 1033
], signs have no intrinsic meaning and become signs by the rules of convention, by the meaning we attach

to them. Anything can be a sign, as long as it is interpreted as something signifying something, rather

than itself. Our capacity to interpret signs in general and linguistic signs (words) in particular is

embedded in human psyche and is largely unconscious. De Saussure offered a dyadicmodel of the sign: a

signifier (the form which the sign takes) and the signified (signifie), the concept represented by this

particular sign. The signified is not a real object linked to a sign, but a psychological entity

corresponding to theobject. For example, the sign “open” consists of the signifier - the sound patterns

of the letters that we hear as the word “open” and the signified- the shop that is opened for customers.The

same signifier, the word “open”could refer to a different signified, for example, the arrow on a box,

showing where the package needs to be opened. This combination would create another pair of the

signified and the signifier, thus create a new sign. Saussure [CITATION Fer16 \l 1033 ]was focused on a

linguistic sign (the word), which represented the link between the concept and the sound pattern.

Therefore, the signifier is a phonological element of a sign, not the actual sound itself but the mental

image of the sound. For Saussure the signifier and the signified are equal elements and are mutually

interdependent and create the whole notion of the sign.

Sign

Signfier

Signfied

The above table [CITATION Dan15 \l 1033 ]demonstrates the connection between the signifier and the

signified by Saussure’s model. The horizontal line marking the two elements of the sign is referred as a

‘bar’. According to Saussure, the signified is always preceding the signifier since the signified is a mental
concept existing in our mind before being expressed by language. While accepting De Saussure’s

structural and functional approach to language, Lacan opposed the expressive model of language and

asserted the priority of the signifier as a material element of language (acoustic patterns) over the

signified. Lacan emphasized that the signifier precedes the signified in logical order rather than

chronological order.Contrary to the sign, that always implies the existence of the referee, the signifiers

have no referee, and they are basic language constructs structured as unconsciousness. As Lacan pointed

out in his SeminarIII[ CITATION Jac93 \l 1033 ],“The unconscious is fundamentally woven, chained and

meshed by language. And not only the signifier plays a big role, as a signifier does, it plays a fundamental

role… what characteristic of the language is system of signifiers as such. “What would be a “signified” in

Lacan’s system? “Signified are not the things in their raw state already there, given in order open to a

meaning… Meaning (a signified) is a human discourse insofar as it always refers to another meaning.”

Therefore, the meaning is not a preexistent notion, but the relative construct, which always refers to

another signification. Thus the meaning (the signified) would slide underneath the process of the

signification. Lacan on-line[CITATION Wha \l 1033 ]usesthe example of the word “table.” From the first

glance, this signifier could relate to the simple material concept of a physical table. However, the signifier

“table” could refer to the variety of different significations: table as a graphic chart, table as material

things you put on, a verb “to table” referring to putting something forward, such as an amendment. The

discourse (the signified) is always in flux and is determined by the chain of the signifiers as it was

illustratedinthe previous example. As there is no fixed connection between the signifier and the signified,

the signifiers would never fully expressthe signified, and the subject who is coming to the preexisting

discourse of the language would never achieve a full state of self-consciousness, and will never know full

truth about himself by the same notion of being a speaking creature, since the speech reflects the

fundamental division between the signifier and the signified. Lacan asserted that sometimes the signified

could be a subject himself. Drawing a theological parallel we can compare the fundamental division of

subject by language to the division of subject by his alienation from the Divine and his desire to achieve
full closeness to the Divine at the same time. The Full Name of Divine (the signified) is hidden and

cannotbe processed or integrated by the subject. However, the subject could attain the sense of closeness,

could create the discourse of meanings by using the signifiers (metaphoric and metonymic substitutions)

to the Full Name as Almighty:The Place, The Judge, etc. Even though the human could never attain the

full closeness with the G-D, the desire to obtain this closeness is a driving force of human relationships

with the Divine.

How do the signifiers (as the main material elements of language) effect the formation of the

unconscious? Lacan viewed the semantic mechanism of language organization into metaphors and

metonyms as closely associated with the unconscious processes of substitution and displacement.

Metaphor is a stylistic figure of language based on a similarity or a substitution. It is a stylistic

mechanism that operates on the paradigmatic level of language, where one thing could substitute for the

other thing. [ CITATION Wik12 \l 1033 ] Lacan associated the linguistic metaphor to the unconscious work

of condensation (unconsciousprocess, where the dreamer puts different images together, minimalizing or

expanding them under one metaphoric cardinal point). Freud[ CITATION Fre10 \l 1033 ]illustrates the

concept of condensation by describing his dream about his patient Irma. Initially Freud dreamed about his

patient Irma “Irma injection”,. In his dream Freud had examined her closely fordiphtheria or tuberculosis.

He noticed that she had membrane which alluded to his worries about his wife Martha who had

thrombosis in one of her pregnancies and was pregnant at that time with their sixth child. Irma’s image

alluded to Freud’s daughter Sophie as well who was sick at this time. Therefore, the unifying image of

Irma represented the intersection of many associative chains otherwisehidden (Lacan,1992).Lacan

[ CITATION Lac77 \l 1033 ]viewed the process of metaphoric formation as the process of creating meaning

where one signifier substitutes for another one. Lacan asserted that metaphorsoccur at thepoint where“the

sense is emerging from the non-sense”Metaphoric formation of language is associated with crossing the

bar of repression from unconsciousness to consciousness.

Lacan associated metonymic formation of language with the process of displacement as it was formulated

in Freud’s groundbreaking work “Interpretation of Dreams.” In linguistics, the term metonymy is the

figure of speech in which a thing or a concept is called not by its own name but rather by the name of

something associated in meaning with this particular concept. For example, “Wall Street” is used as a

metonymy to represent the US economy, the term “Crown”represents the monarchy, and the term

“couch” is associated with psychoanalysis. In this process, the new term would replace and substitute for

the previous term. Freud in his “Interpretation of Dreams” viewed displacement as the primary process,

where the latent content (previously fundamental) has been replaced by the manifested content.

Therefore, the latent ideas could undergo the major shift, the “reverse of value” in Freudian terms, thus

the dream work could reflect the process of displacement. The major function of displacement is to

obscure the manifested level of previously significant material on the latent level. This displacement

happens by allusion, as it could be a sound, a remote associative link, etc. Freud’s own dream about

Garibaldi could be a vivid example of displacement. Freud described his dream of his father after his

death. The father appeared in a crowd standing on a chair. Freud also recalled him looking like Garibaldi

on his death bed. As it was accurately pointed out by L. Razinsky[ CITATION Raz13 \l 1033 ]the logical

absurdity of this dream in which a deceased person continues to be present, alive and politically active

involvesthe displacement of thought, incomprehensible to human consciousness – the transition from life

to death. The dream-thought registering the absurdity of the dream within the dream itself,served as a

“censor” separating inaccessible unconscious content from the manifested.

While linking the metonymic linguistic process to the primary process of displacement, Lacan viewed this

process as the movement of signifiers, where one signifier substitutes for another, thus this movement

creates the chain of signifiers where the initial signification could be veered off as the registration of

absurdthinking. That process happened in Freud’s dream where the unprocessed material of paternal

death transformed into the image of Garibaldi. Lacan viewed the metonymic process as the process where

the unconscious foils the censorship of consciousness and the repressed material remains repressed. Both
linguistic mechanisms (the metaphor and the metonymy) belong to the primary processes and are woven

into subject’s unconsciousness. Both operate without fixed link to a concept, to a signified. The

subject,by being the subject oflanguage (langage as the system), is unconsciously ruled and governed by

the mechanisms of language as the structure.

The Symbolic Order Lacan (1953) wrote a manifesto “The Rome Discourse[ CITATION Lac77 \l 1033 ]

which marked Lacan’ssplit with the psychoanalytic establishment and the creation of his own

psychoanalytic school.In “The Rome Discourse” Lacan introduced the concept of the three fundamental

realms of psychic reality: Imaginary, Symbolic, and Real. This concept would continue to be one of the

most fundamental concepts in the Lacanian School in the future. Contrary to Freud, the three domains of

the psychic are not topographical: they don’t occupy certain fields in the unconscious. Instead, they are

different conceptual categories reflecting a distinctively different psychoanalytic experience.As stated by

R Benvenuto& R. Kennedy [ CITATION Ben86 \l 1033 ]they are structurally interdependent, even though

they are heterogeneous.The prototype of Imaginary Order is an infant in front of the mirror fascinated

by his own image; imaginary order includes the field of phantasies and images. It includes adult

narcissistic relationships as well. There is a linguistic dimension inimaginaryorder, and Lacan called it the

“wall of language.” Dylan Allan(1996) defines the Imaginary Order as “the language of deception, of

illusion.”In Imaginary Order,language distorts and deviates from the subject’s desire of the Other to the

illusionary self-image. The manic state of omnipotence related to the ideas of grandiosity belongs to the

realm of Imaginary Order. The Symbolic Orderis the most important Order in psychoanalytic inquiry; it

represents cultural and social symbolism manifested by the chain of signifiers. The symbolic order is

completely opposed to the biological or genetic structure and is organized by certain laws of social order.

F Dosse (1997) pointed out that Levi-Straussconcept of social order, is characterized by the kinship

relationship of exchanging gifts. Lacan (Lacan, J…1977) viewed communication as a basic way of

exchanging gifts by the value of the words. Therefore, “the langue”, the main tool of communication, is

an essential component of theSymbolic Order. The unconsciousness, which is structured as a language

“unlangage” ,is an integral part of the Symbolic Order as well. The Symbolic Order is the realm of the

Law which regulates the desire in Oedipus complex, andis the realm of culture opposed to the imaginary

realm of nature. The Symbolic Order is the realm of absence, of lack, of compulsive repletion thatgoes

beyond the pleasure principle. Lacan called the Symbolic Order “the entire universe”. By being born into

civilization the subject is not only entering but unconsciously internalizing the Symbolic Order. The

experience of Desire for the Otherand the alienation from the Other lay within the Symbolic Order as

well. Lacan critiqued the contemporary psychoanalytic schools for reducing psychoanalysis to the pure

“Imaginary Order” and ignoring the ultimate impact of the Symbolic Order into psychic reality. The Real

order, for Lacan, is the field outside of language; it is the realm that could not been defined by any

signifiers. Therefore, the Real Order is not only opposed to the imaginary but is located beyond the

symbolic. Lacan described the real as something that resists symbolization, has no opposition, and is

consistently present in the place. In reading Freud’s case history of little Hantz[ CITATION Fre02 \l

1033 ],the birth of little Hantz’s sister would lie in the realm of the Real. Therefore, the real has a

connotation of material physicality, underlying the symbolic and the imaginary. As I previously pointed

out, the Real, the Symbolic, and the Imaginary are interdependent psychic structures. One could not fully

evolve without the other. Lacan illustrated this important idea using the topographical concept of

Borromean knot. The knot consists of three or more rings, and its main quality could be explained as

following: if one ring is cut, the whole structure falls apart and dissolves. The unravellingof the

Borromean knot could cause psychosis.[ CITATION Jac93 \l 1033 ]

 Borromean knot

Imaginary Real

Symbolic

The Name –of- the-Father

On his afterwards remarks to Lacan’s book On the Names-of-the Father J Miller [ CITATION Mil13 \l 1033

] asserted: “Name-of-the-Father ties together the Symbolic, the Imaginary and connect them to Real in a

three part knot.”Lacan viewed the concept Name of the Father as an instrumental insubject’s successful

resolution ofOedipal struggle and thus entering into the realm of Law and Civilization where the Real, the

Imaginary and the Symbolic are tight together and interconnected.

The question of paternity was vital for Lacan’s psychoanalytic inquiry. He stated that the question: “Who

is a father” creates a main thread in Freud’s work as well. He criticized object-relations theory, which,

focused solely on infant-mother dyadicrelationship, excluded paternity from psychoanalytic exploration.

While elaborating on the importance of the oedipal complex, Lacan stressed the dual conflicted function

of paternity: the function of prohibition and the function of protection. The father, according to Lacan, is

also a mediator, who intervenes into the imaginary dyadic relationship between the mother and the child.
The father is not a pure competitor for maternal love, but more a representation of Law and Social Order

crucial for a child’s successfuloedipal resolution allowing the child to enter into the realm of Civilization.

For Lacan, paternity is a complex concept which lies inthe realms of Real, Imaginary and Symbolic

orders.

The main function of the real father is to be the agent of symbolic castration. According to

Lacan,the real father is not the object who is perceived to be a child’s biological father. The real father is

instead morea linguistic than a biological function. He is an object carrying a paternal function in the

family. His main function is to perform the symbolic castration, which spares the child from persistent

anxiety and allows the normal development of the psychic.Evans [ CITATION Ala96 \l 1033 ]interprets the

Lacanian notion of castration as the realization that the imaginary object (the idealized image of the

mother) has a lack, that the child would never be able to satisfy maternal desire (literally he could not

fully represent a symbolic phallic object for the mother). In this way the child unconsciously realized that

he can’t be the mother’s phallic object (the father). The child gives up those attempts by submitting

himself to the principles of reality. Lacan states that the acceptance of symbolic castration marks the

successful resolution of Oedipal Complex. The physical presence or absence of a real paternal object is

not a guarantee of successful Oedipal resolution. Thus, like in Freud’s[ CITATION Fre02 \l 1033 ]example

of little Hantzthe physical paternal object could be there and the child is still not able to experience the

symbolic castration,while conversely, the child could successfully experience the symbolic castration

even when the father is not physically present at home.[ CITATION Ala96 \l 1033 ].

The Imaginary Father is an imago, the compound image of all imaginary features that the subject builds

around thefather figure. The imaginary father could be an ideal or an evil father, a primordial father of a

primitive tribe, or the fearful figure who imposes the incest taboo. In all cases, the imaginary father is an

all-powerful figure correlating with the traditional perception of G-d as an omnipotent figure.
The Symbolic Father: The Concept of Symbolic Father is one of the most complex and crucial concepts

of Lacanian psychoanalysis. Contrary to the Real and Imaginary Father, the Symbolic Father is a

position situated in Symbolic Order. His function belongs to the realm of unconscious. His function is to

distinguish between the imaginary order of nature and the symbolic order of culture. He imposes the Law

and regulates the Desire in Oedipal complex. Even though the Symbolic Father is not a subject, still the

subject may occupy this position by executing the paternal function in Real, and even this intervention

remains veiled and disguised. He is mostly mediating the Discourse of the Mother, by putting frame and

limits to the imaginary omnipotent relationship between the child and the mother and creating a symbolic

distance between them. The symbolic distance allows the syntheses of Desire and Law on a different

level. This is reminiscent of the famous Hegel analogy ofthesis, antithesis and synthesis. The castrating

acceptance of the sovereignty of the Law of the Father could guarantee that the child would find a

reasonable substitution for his loss of the ultimate love object. However, the loss would never be fully

substituted, and the object would always carry the fundament lack and split between the need, the demand

and the desire. The existential split of the subject and the ability to substitute infantile imaginary

identifications of “imaginary ego” to more mature “ego ideal” will be, according to Lacan, the common

path of normal development. The ego ideal is the identification with something that could not be touched,

seen, or experienced inthe realm of the Real: the words, the notion of language as it represents Law, and

the normative ways of social organization. By entering the realm of language of a particular culture the

subject is internalizing the function of the Symbolic Father.

Name-of-the-Father

In his introductory words to Lacan’slecture “On –the Names- of the- Father” Jacques Miller [ CITATION

Mil13 \l 1033 ]wrote: “What an astonishing success the Name-of the Father has had. Everyone finds

something in it. Who is one’s father is not immediately obvious, hardly beingvisible for the naked eye?

Paternity is established first and foremost for one’s culture…”

Initially, when Lacan introduced the concept “name of the father” he mostly meant the “symbolic father”,

the function executing thesymbolic castration limiting the mother desire. He played on homophony

between ‘le nom du pére’ (the name of the1father) and le ‘non” du pére’ (no of the father) to

emphasizethe prohibitive and legislative function of the father. In his later work Lacan started to

capitalize the term Name-of-the-Father, addedhyphenation, and articulated the meaning more precisely.

According to the latest development of Lacan’sthought, Name- of- the-Father is a fundamental signifier

that allows the normal process of signification. This initial signifier (veiled) creates subject identity (place

and function in culture) and signifies the initial oedipal prohibition‘non due pere’‘no’ to incest. Lacan

viewed the paternal metaphor as a main signifier. Lacan quoted the Viktor Hugo poemBoaz Endormi,

where the poet retells the famous Biblical story of Boaz and Ruth. This poem serves as an illustration of

the Lacanian notion that paternity is of primary signification. While Ruth is sleeping at Boaz’s feet, Boaz

dreams that a tree grows from his stomach. The poet writes:“ his sheaves were neither miserly nor spiteful.

”In this poem Hugo metaphorically substituted Boaz and ‘sheaf”. Lacan called this process signification.

The word “sheaf” gives new meaning to the image of Boaz as the pro-creator of a royal dynasty.

Therefore, paternity is not only the theme of this poem but is structured within the metaphor itself.

Following the steps of Jewish tradition we couldcreate an analogy between the Primary Signifier and the

G-d whose Full name is hidden and non-pronounced. As the presence of the Symbolic Father (even

hidden behind the Symbolic Mother) is an essential function in subject development, similarly the notion

of Hidden Divine Name is an essential part of the individual and collective desire to internalize the

concept of G-d and to seek relationship with G-d as the Other. Lacan viewed the proper primary

signification as an essential condition to the continuation of the chain of signifiers allowing full entrance

of the subject into the symbolic meaning of language. Similarly, the various names of G-d represent the

metonymic and metaphoric substitution for the Tetragrammaton allowing the creation of a symbolic

relationship between the subject and the Divine. Some of those substitutions are metonymic (Right Hand,

the Place) and some are metaphoric (Almighty, The Judge, the Merciful…). In 1963, Lacan gave a talk

1
recently published [ CITATION Jaq13 \l 1033 ]in which he acknowledged and recognized the theological

notion of the substitution of the Divine Name as the core concept allowing the transformative experience

between G-d and Abraham. In this lecture Lacan brought the example of the binding of Itzhak as a focal

point of this transformative experience. After the binding,the Divine Desire for the Patriarchs would be

carried not in human physical sacrifice but in substitute action of a covenantof the world (brit milah).

Lacan saw this development as a parallel to the creation of the chain of signifiers deriving from the

primary signifier and substituting it. Lacan called this process development of the substitution of the

primarily paternal metaphor - Names-of-the-Father. He introduced this concept only once, in his final

lecture before he was excommunicated from the international psychoanalytic community.

The phenome of psychosis

Contrary to Freud, who approached unconsciousness via neurosis, Lacan approached unconsciousness via

psychosis. For Lacan, psychosis is not a combination of symptoms but the underlying structure of psychic

reality. The subject who has this structure did not enter the Symbolic Order andhad a serious disorder

regarding the place of the Other. The lack of symbolization creates the gap, that being replaced by the

Imaginary Order leading to the various distortions in the Real Order such as voices and hallucinations.

Prior to entering the psychoanalytic world in early 30s,Lacan wrote his doctoral dissertation, where he

focused on understanding a psychotic delusionalpatient namedAimée who tried to stab the famous actress

Huguette Duflos[ CITATION Ben86 \l 1033 ]. Lacan argued that by trying to murder the actress, the

patient was trying to “kill” some parts of herself, so she herself was the object of punishment. In this case

the patient’s self-image lay completely outside of her body. This patient not only lost the connection with

reality, but substituted it with a different reality. Her relationship to the world, her intentions and her

action,were mediated by her delusions. For Lacan[ CITATION Jac93 \l 1033 ]the most important part of
understanding psychotic phenomena is not the inquiry of the lost connection to the reality, but

psychoanalytic examination of the alternative reality.

We would like to look a little closer at the ways in which the gap in Symbolic Order affects psychosis.

The psychotic did not enter the field of language, as his unconsciousness is present but not functional.

Thus the psychotic’s speech is not governed by laws of the metonymy and the metaphor. The speech of

the psychotic lacks metaphorical realms. It is full of mumbling words, unclear references, and it sounds

like there is not proper metaphoric structure to anchor the psychotic’s speech. This gap reflects the fact

that the psychotic subject didn’t internalize “the paternal metaphor” and didn’t go through the process of

symbolic castration, where the symbolic father has the invisible but crucial function to mediate the Desire

by theLaw. In a regular case the Symbolic Father plays a fundamental but non-visible role in subject

development. However, in psychosis the Name-of-the-Father is foreclosed, the subject is not able to

internalize it; it leaves the hole in symbolic order that would never be filled. As Lacan said: “What was

abolished internally, returned from without…..” [ CITATION Jac93 \l 1033 ]. The case of Judge Schreber,

initially analyzed by Freud and revisited by Lacan, provides a vivid illustration ofthe Lacanian concept of

Foreclosure of Name-of-the Father. Lacan revisited the case of the psychosis of Judge Schreber, who

wrote the detailed description of his illness himself. The case of Judge Schreber is a fascinating account

of the Dresden Appeal Court Judge, who had a mental breakdown, came back to the bench as a chief

Judge of Dresden, suffereda severe anxiety attack, tried to commit suicide, and was readmitted to

Leipzigpsychiatric facility. As part of his delusional psychosis, he was convinced that he needed to

transform into a woman to save the world. He claimed he wasG-d’s partner and mate who could help G-d

in the mission of redemption. He also announced that the stars had the capacity to speak to him in human

language.Lacan [ CITATION Jac93 \l 1033 ]stated that his promotion to the position of a Chief Judge and

his inability to become a fatherwere the triggers to his second nervous breakdown and the subsequent

admission to theLeipzig Clinic. Lacan viewed the themes of Judge Shreber’spsychosis[ CITATION

Shr55 \l 1033 ], such as a desire to transform into a woman and to becomeG-d’s mate, as significant
evidences to the nature of psychosis: the inability to process and to integrate the symbolic castration (the

desire to become a women) and the failure of processing paternal metaphor (failure to become a

biological father and failure to perform a symbolic paternal function associated with the position of the

Supreme Judge.) As a result, Daniel Schreber was not able to integrate the Name-of the Father and to

place it at the field of the other. The Name-of-the-Father was foreclosed and the Imaginary Order, where

Judge Schreber communicated with G-d,prevailed in his psychic reality followed by special linguistic

expression of Divine in the realm of the Real.

Clinical Implication

ForLacan, a psychotic structure is a basic psychic structure of the subject. It may or may not be triggered

in asubject’s life. The foreclosure of Name-of-the-Father is a psychotic defense mechanism,when

unprocessed unconscious material is not buried into the unconscious but expelled from the

unconsciousness to the external reality. This process could cause a psychotic breakdown for the subject

who initially had a latent psychotic structure without the manifested symptoms of psychosis. In the case

of Daniel Schreber, the appointment to the position of Supreme Judge caused the breakdown of

manifested psychotic symptoms for someone who had a latent psychotic structure beforehand.

The primary author found that Lacan’s innovative ideas on psychosis could significantly alter the ways of

viewing and working with patients in her clinical practice. We want to discuss one clinical vignette to

illustrate the clinical contributions of Lacanian ideas to her clinical work.

As we mentioned earlier the patient of the primary author was hospitalized in a locked unit due to a

severe psychotic outbreak. After a brief anti-psychotic treatment, she compensated quickly and came back

from the hospital directly to the work place.

Historically, thepatient had unexpectedly lost her father at age thirteen, and after his death the family

experienced severe financial and psychological difficulties, followed by the total inability of her mother

to function. In response to this loss thepatient took the semi-maternal role in the family, attending to all
the needs of her little sister. During the first year following the father’s death, her mother performed the

ceremony of intensive mourning forcing thepatient to attend the cemetery every weekend. However, at

age 18, whenthe patient, along with her mother and siblings,relocated from her native country of Israel,

the theme of the father’s death transformed into an unspoken taboo between my patient, her mother, and

her siblings. They stopped talking about it and never commemorated Yor-Tzait (the traditional

commemoration of the paternal death).Later after relocation to Israel, 2she immediately got married to her

husband who became a substitute father figure to the patient by taking care of her financial, social, and

emotional needs. She had mentioned in the session that if her father would be alive he would not allow

my patient to marry soearly; however after he died the situation had changed Patient has expressed a

sense of longing for parental protection and acknowledged that her husband was providing her with that

sense until their relocation to the US. It looks like that her husband has unconsciously internalized this

function, and started to view himself as a main caretaker and protector as well. He reported going to the

grave of his wife’s father and acknowledging his sense of gratitude to him and reassured that he will take

care for his daughter atientviewed relocation to US as a dramatic event. She felt uprooted and socially

isolated, and experienced tremendous difficulties in adjusting to American culture. Since the relocation to

the US was initiated by her husband as a search of better financial opportunities, his protective paternal

function ceased to exist. The patient experienced foreclosure of Name-of-the Fatherfollowed by severe

psychotic breakdown. The image of her husband as her main persecutor was the primary image in her

psychotic narrative. After her discharge from the psychiatric hospital, treatment has focused on

expanding the realm of the Symbolic Order. The patient broke the family taboo regarding her father’s

death and started to articulate the symbolic aspects of her father’s death in her life: the fundamental

vulnerability, the sense of unsafety, and the unconscious search for the substitute paternal figure. She was

able to articulate the ways of approaching her husband as a substitute paternal figure. She clearly pointed

out that her husband gave her the sense of safety and protection, the sense she lost completely since her

father’s death. The patient acknowledged having a lot of fantasies of protection and taking care as a

2
young teen and was able to articulate that her husband had this protective function in her fantasies prior to

relocation to US.

Conclusion

In Lacan’s later work, the Name-of-the-Father became one of the main concepts in Lacanian

psychoanalysis. He viewed it as a Borromean knot (The mutual area, where the Real, the Imaginary

andthe Symbolic Order are tied together) as we demonstrated in the graph. The foreclosure of Name-of-

the-Father causes the rupture of the knot of where the Real, the Imaginary, and the Symbolic are

discontinued and no longer are woven together. .

We drawan analogy between the experiences of the revelation of the Full Name of G-d to the Foreclosure

of the Name-of-the-Father. The Jewish Tradition approaches the experience of Divine Revelation as the

practice of extreme spiritual intensity. Talmudic sources described the allegory of four famous Sages that

entered “Pardes” (the allegorical name of the advanced level of mystical revelation.) The source depicted

that this experience had altered their lives: one of them died, another one became insane, one became a

heretic,and only one (Rabbi Akiva) entered with peace and exited with peace[ CITATION Tra95 \l 1033 ]

Lacan approached the Name-of-the-Father not only as a key concept in his psychoanalytical teaching but

as a mystical notion that yet needed to be concealed from his audience. During his last open seminar on

this topic, which was followed by his excommunication from the International Psychoanalytic

Association, Lacan hinted to the audience that the time had not come yet to reveal all the hidden aspects

of Name-of-the-Father. He drove the analogy between the Name-of-the-Father and all paternal metaphors

ending with the metaphor of G-d (Him, Whose Name is not known…). At the same lecture he declared

that it was G-d in “front of him Freud laid his pen in final analyses,” since paternity and paternal

metaphor was the main theme of Freud’s psychoanalytic inquiry.[ CITATION Jaq13 \l 1033 ]
Name-of-the-Father inserted the Divine into the core of psychoanalytic practice. As Jacques Miller wrote

in his introduction to Lacan’s last lecture,“On the Names –of- the Father”,“What an astonishing success

the Name-of the-Father has had. Everyone finds something in it. It is not pagan, for it’s found in the

Bible. He, who speaks from the burning bush, says of himself that he doesn’t have one name. In other

words, the father has no Proper name; it is not the figure of speech, but rather a function. What is its

function? The religious function of tying things together the signifier, and the signified, the law and the

desire, mind and body. In short the symbolic and the imaginary. Yes, these three become tied to the Real

in a three part knot. .….”[ CITATION Jaq13 \l 1033 ]. In this paper we have tried to create our own

‘Borromean knot’- ourunderstanding of Lacanian psychoanalytic inquiry regarding the desire and the

unconsciousness. We looked into the ways the linguistic structure of the unconscious as the consistent

chain of signifiers,resembling Freudian condensation and replacement, determined the experience of the

subject from the day of birth. Weexplored how thelinguistic structure of the unconscious affected the

Lacanian concept of Real, Imaginary and Symbolic.All three dimensions are focal points in theLacanian

construct of paternity. We tried to articulate this complexity by paying special attention to the place of

the Symbolic Father in psychic structure in normal development and by exploring the state of psychosis

as a phenomenon characterized by the absence of the Symbolic Father. Welooked closely at the concept

of foreclosure of the-Name-of-the-Father as a unique psychic reaction of the subject with psychotic

structure that could cause the breakout of manifested psychotic symptoms. We used the theological

approach of Jewish tradition and Lacan’s own reminiscences of Jewish texts to deepen the understanding

of those complex concepts. The clinical casein our presentation from Freud’s and Lacan’s patients

illustrated that Lacanian ideas have a potential for wide clinical application. The primary author’s clinical

vignette demonstrated that a Lacanian approach to the Foreclosure of Name-of-the-Father could radically

change the case conceptualization and further treatment.

Our Sages said: “The day is short, and the work is extensive.” [ CITATION Mis98 \l 1033 ] . Paraphrasing

the saying of our Sages we can say that there is still an extensive amount of work that needs to be done to

understand Lacan both in the realm of his philosophical ideas and in realm of the clinical field.

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