Lacan's "The Mirror Stage as Formative of the I Function" (Summary)

 

At our previous congress thirteen years ago, I introduced the concept of the mirror stage, which has since gained traction within the French group's practice. Today, I believe it is pertinent to revisit this concept, particularly for its insights into the formation of the self in psychoanalysis. This experience challenges philosophies derived directly from the Cogito.

 

The genesis of this concept stems from an observation in comparative psychology. We noted that even at an age when a child might be temporarily surpassed by a chimpanzee in instrumental intelligence, the child can already recognize their own reflection in a mirror. This recognition manifests in the captivating mimicry of what Köhler terms the Aha-Erlebnis, representing a crucial stage of situational apperception within the act of intelligence.

 

Unlike in the case of a monkey, where the act might conclude upon mastering the image, in children, it initiates a series of gestures. Through play, the child explores the relationship between their movements reflected in the mirror and the surrounding reality, including their own body and the people and objects nearby. This phenomenon, documented as early as six months by Baldwin, captivates me, especially witnessing infants engage with mirrors.

 

Even though these infants cannot yet walk or stand unaided, their jubilant activity in front of the mirror unveils a libidinal dynamism and an ontological structure of the human world that resonates with my reflections on paranoid knowledge. This activity holds significance for me until around eighteen months of age, revealing a symbolic matrix in which the ego assumes a primordial form—the Ideal-I—before undergoing further objectification through identification with others and linguistic development.

 

Understanding the mirror stage as a profound identification process sheds light on the transformation that occurs within the subject as they embrace their image—an imago—in a manner consistent with psychoanalytic theory. This joyous assumption of their specular image by the infant, amidst their motor incapacity and dependence, epitomizes the foundational formation of the ego, preceding its social determinations. This Ideal-I formulates the groundwork for subsequent identifications, including libidinal normalization, while also situating the ego's agency in a fictional trajectory that remains uniquely individualistic, resisting complete assimilation into societal constructs.

 

The concept of the mirror stage illuminates how a subject anticipates the maturation of their power through the total form of the body, grasped as a Gestalt—a structured whole that contrasts with the subject's internal sense of movement. This Gestalt symbolizes both the enduring nature of the self and its potential alienation, echoing our projections onto statues, phantoms, and even automatons.

 

Mirrors serve as a threshold to the visible world for our imagos, shaping hallucinations, dreams, and manifestations of the double. Biological experiments with pigeons and locusts highlight the formative influence of images on organisms, suggesting a homeomorphic identification related to notions of beauty.

 

Mimicry, whether homomorphic or heteromorphic, raises questions about the significance of space for living organisms, inviting psychological analysis beyond mere adaptation. This spatial captation, evident in the mirror stage, hints at an organic insufficiency in human reality, compounded by an innate discordance and prematurity in human birth.

 

The mirror stage functions as a mechanism for establishing a relation between the organism and its reality, reflecting a primal Discord within the human organism. Embryological concepts like foetalization underscore the early development of the cortical system, which acts as an intra-organic mirror.

 

This developmental process unfolds as a temporal dialectic, propelling the individual's formation into history. From fragmented body-image to orthopaedic totality and ultimately to the assumption of an alienating identity, the mirror stage shapes the subject's mental development, perpetuating the quest for validation in the external world.

The fragmented body, a term I've incorporated into our theoretical framework, often emerges in dreams when the individual faces aggressive disintegration. It presents as disjointed limbs or organs taking on surreal forms, akin to Hieronymus Bosch's visionary paintings. This fragmentation is palpably evident in the anatomical lines of phantasy, seen in the schizoid and spasmodic symptoms of hysteria.

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Conversely, the formation of the ego is depicted in dreams as a fortress or stadium, with inner arenas surrounded by marshes and rubbish heaps, symbolizing internal struggles. On the mental plane, we encounter fortified structures akin to obsessional neurosis mechanisms, such as inversion, isolation, and displacement.

 

However, solely relying on subjective observations leaves our theoretical endeavors vulnerable to projecting into the realm of an absolute subject. Therefore, I've sought a method of symbolic reduction grounded in objective data, establishing a genetic order within the ego's defenses.

 

This framework positions hysterical repression at a more archaic stage than obsessional inversion, which precedes paranoic alienation stemming from the deflection of the specular ego into the social ego. The transition from the mirror stage marks the commencement of a dialectic linking the ego to socially constructed scenarios, propelled by the drama of primordial jealousy and identification with the counterpart.

 

This pivotal moment mediates human knowledge through the desire of others, abstractly equating objects through social cooperation. The ego becomes an apparatus wherein every instinctual impulse poses a threat, necessitating cultural mediation for maturation, exemplified in the Oedipus complex.

 

In this context, the term "primary narcissism" unveils profound semantic nuances, elucidating the dynamic interplay between narcissistic libido and sexual libido. Early analysts invoked destructive instincts to explain the link between narcissistic libido and the alienating function of the ego, manifesting as aggressivity even in ostensibly altruistic interactions.

The contemporary philosophy of being and nothingness acknowledges existential negativity, but it confines this negativity within the bounds of consciousness's self-sufficiency, perpetuating the illusion of autonomy linked to ego méconnaissances. Despite drawing heavily from psychoanalytic experience, this philosophy falls short in providing a comprehensive existential psychoanalysis.

 

Existentialism emerges at a historical juncture where society predominantly emphasizes utilitarian functions, leading individuals to grapple with anxieties stemming from a concentrated form of social bondage. However, its explanations for subjective impasses fail to align with our experiential realities. The freedom it champions often manifests within the confines of confinement, commitment expresses the impotence of pure consciousness, and its treatment of sexual relations veers toward voyeuristic and sadistic idealizations.

 

Contrary to existentialist propositions, our psychoanalytic experience reveals that the ego isn't solely centered on perception-consciousness or organized by the reality principle, a scientific bias hostile to knowledge's dialectic. Instead, we must recognize the ego's inherent méconnaissance, notably articulated by Anna Freud. Verneinung represents a patent form of this function, with latent effects only illuminated by acknowledging the id's manifestations.

 

Understanding the inertia of ego formations provides a broad definition of neurosis, while the captation of the subject by the situation offers insight into madness—both within and beyond asylum walls. The sufferings of neurosis and psychosis serve as a lesson in soul passions, while psychoanalysis unveils society's numbing of these passions.

 

At the intersection of nature and culture, psychoanalysis identifies the imaginary servitude inherent in love, a knot that must continually be undone or severed. We remain skeptical of altruistic sentiments, recognizing the underlying aggressivity in philanthropy, idealism, pedagogy, and reform.

 

In our practice, psychoanalysis guides patients to the ecstatic revelation of mortal destiny encapsulated in "Thou art that," but it cannot single-handedly embark them on the journey where true transformation begins.