JORNADAS LABORALES 45

In general, psychoanalytic theory proposes three broad clinical structures or subject positions: psychosis, neurosis and perversion. For Lacan, these three structures emerge from the process through which the human organism is configured and

calibrated by the passage into language, the process Lacan termed symbolic castration in a reconfiguration of the Freudian Oedipus Complex.

Psychosis, the first structure (identified by foreclosure) isa failure in the process that secures the subject in the signifying chain – outlined in the first graph – where the subject is captured but the suturing does not take place. In Lacanian terms, the

primordial signifier (Name-of-the-Father) is not integrated (Evans, 2003, p.155). Although the psychotic subject is able to use language, the points de capiton do not adequately form to secure the relational differential matrix, leaving the psychotic subject adrift in a sea of words that do not cohere into a set of organised thought structures that establish meaning.

Neurosis, the most prevalent clinical structure (identified by repression), turns upon two main sub-categories of hysteria and obsession with the addition of phobia (an extreme case within neurotic structure).In neurosis, subjection to the signifier (symbolic castration or the Oedipus complex in Freudian terms) is accepted; however, the sub- categories of hysteria and obsession signal that each attains stability in different modes with a characteristic doubting and questioning relation with respect to the desire of the o(O)ther (Evans, 2003, p.123). For hysteria the question oscillates around sexual difference: ‘Am I man or woman?’ For obsession the question is: ‘To be or not to be - Am I alive or dead?’ It is these two existential questions concerning sexuality and death that mark out neurosis as the structure that cannot find an answer in the Symbolic.16

The third clinical structure, perversion, is identified by disavowal. Although acceding to symbolic castration, castration is in turn denied. This ensues through a reversal of the neurotic position insofar as the relation with the o(O)ther is inverted with the utilisation of various modus operandi that ensure that castration is veiled, often through the appropriation of a particular fetish object. Rather than the neurotic position that relates to the o(O)ther through an oscillating inquisition plagued by doubt, the perverse subject seeks and derives vicarious satisfaction in servitude to the Law by exacting it as the agent of the Other. Although sadistic in appearance, it is an inverted form of masochistic subjection (Evans, 2003, pp.138-39).

It is crucial, however, to acknowledge that Lacan did not seek to adjudicate towards any subjective structure that could be designated normal: all structures – to a lesser or greater degree – represent a symptomatic relation that is individually

constituted within a particular social milieu. Thus, any supposed norm is revealed to be an adjudication that takes place within a given social-political context, rather than an a priori ‘natural’ or essentialist quality that is determinative. In contradistinction to other forms of psychotherapy, it is not the objective of clinical psychoanalytic practice in the Lacanian orientation to sanction any particular social-political adjudication. Lacan’s

account of the subject is one of irrevocable division (Evans, 2003, p.196): through the process of splitting and the disjuncture created, however, the conditions of possibility for change emerge. Put simply, the dichotomous nature-nurture debate is subverted. With

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these points in mind, let us return to discuss the processes of identification and subjectivation, and their figuration on the graph of desire.

As the nascent subject appears fleetingly within the signifying chain – in the manner of Freudian ‘deferred action’ – it slides along the chain of signifiers towards an

anticipated but never attained unequivocal meaning. The subject does, however, attain stability at various junctures – illustrated by the point de capiton – which arrest

movement along the chain by securing signifier to signified. This exemplifies Lacan’s

maxim that the subject is represented in a minimal and vicarious way by one signifier for another as it disappears under the signifier. Like a flame poised to ignite, the Lacanian subject only sparks fleetingly between signifiers (Fink, 1997). To take the liberty of

extending Fink’s metaphor, the subject might be also understood as the moth that oscillates and hovers incessantly around a flame, simultaneously attracted and repelled by the nodal points of capture – the points de caption –in the chains of signifiers of the o(O)ther. It is both necessary and timely at this point to digress to a brief explanation of the use of both upper and lower case letters in the term o(O)ther.

The term o(O)ther, at this stage, implies two levels of reference.17 The Other – or

‘big Other’ – represents the Symbolic order as a defined relational set of discursive social institutions and practices that result from language as a system. The lower case form –‘the other’ –refers to the ‘individual’ level of the other; ‘the other’ as conduit for

the social matrix at the level of the particular. However, as the following discussion will make clear, the particular other is by no means transparent, reciprocal or mutually

exclusive. This becomes evident when the graph is approached at the level of ‘the (particular) other’.

From the perspective of particular infant/other relations, the vector beginning at

the delta (∆) on the lower right corner of the first graph maps the pressure of need; the

neonate’s biological necessity for sustenance and its transformation as it encounters the signifying chain of the Other through the relation which it forms with the other as

17

Further inflections and development of this term occur in Lacan’s later work; however, for the

purpose of clarity at this point, the definition has been restricted to the two axes predominant at the time of the formulation of the graph of desire.

primary caregiver.18 For Lacan, need becomes transformed into demand as a

consequence of the necessity for need to be processed through language in order for it to

be registered and understood by the other. Put simply, because the infant’s needs must

be registered by the other and interpreted within the preordained possibilities within the symbolic constellation of language, the condition of demandthat ensues extendsbeyond the initial state of need. Demand entails not only the satisfaction of the infant’s

biological needs, but an additional demand for recognition, or request for love, from the other which is in excess of any purely biological need. The gap between need and its articulation as demand is the wellspring of desire.

The resultant split subject – the subject of the signifier – becomes the desiring subject; desire being the difference or subtraction of need from demand. In The subversion of the subject in the dialectic of desire Lacan observes that:

Desire begins to take shape in the margin in which demand rips away from need, this margin being the one that demand - whose appeal can be unconditional only with respect to the Other - opens up in the guise of the possible gap need may give rise to here, because it has no universal satisfaction (this is called “anxiety”).(E, p.689)

Once need is transformed into demand through the ‘defiles of the signifier’, there is always ‘something more’ that is sought beyond need that can never be fully satisfied. Desire, therefore, flows as a consequence of symbolic castration as need becomes enmeshed within the Symbolic order, and is founded upon the installation of an

irresolvable gap or lack that emerges between need and demand. This lack, as we shall

later discover, is intimately connected to ‘the one true affect’ –anxiety– as gestured to

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This position is most often assigned to the real mother, and the term m(O)ther has traditionally been adopted. This term is, however, regarded as an anachronistic way of presenting this aspect of theory as both men and women undertake the primary caregiver role. It is likewise a simplification to assign the signifying function to the intervention of the real father. As Kaja Silverman (1988,) insightfully points out, the installation of language is linked to the primary caregiver (as the agent of the Other), whether that person is biologically male or female. Alternatively, Paul Verhaeghe (2009) criticizes the erasure of references to the mother as a politically correct move that obscures the importance of the real mother and

by Lacan in the quotation above that has the characteristic of turning upon two different planes or levels.

The multiple and diverse explanations above illustrate the complexity that belies the apparent simplicity of the first graph. Although such detail may seem to over-

determine its meaning at this juncture, it will become clearer as this exegesis progresses that Lacan’s concepts and terms are multi-layered and polyvalent. The various meanings ascribed to each term/concept do not supplant each other in a temporally diachronic fashion, but expand on multiple levels.