Lacan’s Neurosis as Normativity
This is a re-posting of an assignment I wrote for a Psychoanalysis Module.
Following a reading of Lacan’s ‘Family Complexes in the formation of the individual’, this article will attempt to outline a breakdown of how Neurosis is construed by Lacan as a distinct psychical structure. Reference to additional literature will be provided where appropriate to support Lacan’s thesis.
Neurosis as Normativity
Firstly, by accepting Neurosis as a ‘psychical structure’ once accepts Lacan’s nosological contention that neurosis itself is indistinct from any immaterial position which might be construed as normative (Evans, 2006). Therefore, attempting to understand the determinants of Neurosis is to study normality by the means of its pathological manifestations (Grunberger, 1970). Lacan (1938) expands on Freud’s assertion that the content of a symptom constitutes a concrete aspect of the patient’s reality, and that this content contains the causes of such symptoms. Yet Lacan (1969/2007) defined the symptom as being the representation of truth of the family experience, thus the symptom correlates to the family’s’ symptomatic structure, be it Neurotic or Psychotic.
Lacan demonstrates that Neurotic symptoms (which can be traced to early sexual experiences during infancy) are testament to pre-existing complexes already formed at these early stages, and that an infant having a constellation of sexual relationships with internalized imagoes of its family are a feature of normative family structures. The family plays a significant role in the genesis of the Neurotic’s structure and afflictions (Lacan, 1938) which are further pertinent as existential expressions of the individual/subject’s drama.
Both family events and the familial constellations have a determining influence on symptoms and structures, making them paramount for understanding Neurosis. Psychopathology follows from the frustration of the natural configurations of the infant’s archetypal programming, yet their fulfilment is stated as conducive to non-pathologic neurotic functioning (Costello, 2002)
Culture as Structuring the Family.
Rodriguez (1996) clarifies that it is the unconscious which aggregates the epistemic object, rather than the family. Keeping in mind that the Lacanian definition of the unconscious is the discourse of the Other. The subject becomes a being of speech and unconscious, as a consequence of this aggregation process. The Other (constituting the locus of desire and language) is incarnated via the figures provided by the family who further delegate to the subject a world of human figures under subordination to cultural rules, sexual matters and the instrument of both the law and its transgression.
The prohibition of incest — and conversely the prescription of exogamic union (object choice) — is considered a universal property of family, which is culturally inherent in the constitution of the subject. This cultural law impacts the subject in a manner equivalent to the psychoanalytic experience which Freud would refer to as the Oedipus Complex (Rodriguez, 1996).
However, the concomitant psychological phenomena correlating with the Oedipus Complex are to be considered its effects and not the actual cause of the complex (Rodriguez, 1996). Oedipal Law of prohibition against incestuous desire and fulfillment rules man’s sexuality; to enjoy sexuality is to adhere to constraints imposed by the law of Other.
Weaning
The complexes that precipitate the Oedipus Complex are that of Weaning and Intrusion.
These complexes (functioning as organizers of psychic development) correspond to pivotal/critical developmental moments of linking primordial others with structuring functions (Rodriguez, 1996). With weaning, a biological relationship inherent in feeding off the primary object is interrupted. The trauma involved with weaning ingrains a permanent trace in the psyche, establishing the retroactive effect of a nostalgic wholeness, symbiotic fusion and a crisis of loss. The imagoes of mother, breast and womb form unconscious representations of this union, further symbolized as the family house (Rodriguez, 1996).
An infant develops an object-cathexis to their primary caregiver (usually referred to the mother-figure), while a process of identification with the father figure is formed… whereby identification inevitably becomes transformed into hostility toward the father (Freud 1923). These processes are conceived as parallel, although agressivity is inherent in identification: assimilation of the breast prior to weaning is attempted through eating and thus annihilation of it. Father rivalry that becomes more manifest during the Oedipus Complex is claimed to be a repetition of this pre-oedipal identification (Borch-Jacobsen & Brick, 1994).
For the Neurotic Individual, abandonment of securities and compulsivity has the effect of repeating a weaning incident. Thus, the cultural emphasis for exogamic union is made paramount, for which Lacan (1938) bolsters the Hegelian dictum that the individual who is not established external to the family dies without achieving personality.
This vital relationship with the primary caregiver as contributed to the infant’s construction of reality and giving affective value to objects (and internalized imagoes constituting a complex), which further forms the basis for subjective understanding (Lacan 1938).
Intrusion
Additional ‘realities’ are further introduced to the infant via the identification of the human being imago acquired at the mirror phase; fragmented representations of the infant’s world and own body are succeeded by a representation of physical and mental unity. Yet there is a recognition of the imago as double, a counterpart, through the identification of which affords the ego. Additionally, the development of body ego and its union with body depends on the primary caregiver’s handling (Redfearn, 2018). Furthermore, the enactment of jealousy occurs, as this other can be recognized as a third object who interferes with the satisfaction deriving from the narcissistic identification during the mirror stage.
In the Intrusion complex, the subject comes to experience having siblings as usurpers of the relationship with the primordial mother. Therefore, jealousy inevitably disrupts fraternity, yet the ambivalent manifestation of this jealousy and loving sets the subject up for aggressivity (Costello, 2002) as both rivalry and agreement are inherent in competition (Rodriguez, 1996).
By the Nodal Complex of Neuroses, the Oedipus Complex is understood as concerning many of the preceding psychical and traumatic relationships inherent in the weaning and intrusion complex, thereby defining them within the familial structure and constellates the subject’s sexual desire (Costello, 2002)
The affective and representational correlations of the weaning and intrusion trauma are remembered as an impression, yet repressed and retained in unconscious. A symptom has a function of defending the subject against an anxiety deriving from primordial separation, this anxiety is aroused by experiences which resemble the threat of castration, and therefore the subject’s defenses prohibit a certain access to reality, which characterizes the Neurotic’s experience of self-nonrecognition in the content of their symptom (Lacan, 1938. p68–69).
Oedipus Complex
Because the child’s frustration is consequential to the prematurity of their drives (Lacan, 1938), another example of a Complex compensating for instinctual inadequacy (Evans, 2006) can be inferred by their linking this frustrated instinct to the father (opposite sex parent) who is perceived to be an obstacle for the satisfaction.
While neurotic symptoms are characteristic of a symbolic order, this implies that a conquest of that symbolic order has been achieved (with repression functioning as the primary defense mechanism). This transition from the imaginary to the symbolic is attained through the successful negotiation of the three dialectic stages of the Oedipus dialectic (Evans, 2006).
Stage 1:
During the first dialectic the infant desires to identify with the ‘imaginary phallus’ desired by the mother (the thing that keeps mother’s desire away from baby) Yet rivalry with the father coincides in the realization that the child is not the phallus and that the father must have it. Hostility becomes conflated with identification in order for the infant to become the phallus. The psychical act of Symbolic Exchange is required for the desire of being the imaginary phallus to be given up (castrated) so as the infant can receive it as a symbol in return. Thus, the normalization of sexuality via the Oedipus Complex experience involves metaphorical substitution.
Stage 2:
The case of little Hans is provided to illustrate how his transition from imaginary to symbolic consists of organizing the imaginary through an exercise of symbolic exchange (Leader, 2003). When the subject is placing itself at the level of the question, the imaginary and symbolic components of the subject’s life are constantly recombined for possible configurations (aka, solutions of this question).
Thus, for Hans his question concerns his position between mother and father, and how to comprehend the privation introduced by the phobia which seems impassable. Yet to answer the questions Hans is firstly responding to real elements in his life that require a situation in his symbolic order, this can only be achieved by firstly reformulating pre-existing imaginary elements (Leader, 2003).
The images that are made available to the infant’s structure during the OC have a determining affectivity on their conception of reality (Lacan, 1938).
However, as the father failed his privation function (on the mother) during this 2nd dialectic of the Oedipus Complex, Hans’ collective reformulation manifesting in his phobia introduced a myth as a logical tool for the responding to this question (Leader, 2003) which fundamentally afforded Hans a means to negotiate between fear of losing the ability to desire and the need for attaining erotic gratification (Feher-Gurewich, 2003).
Traumatic incidents of the complex are conducive to the order of Transference Neuroses, the most obvious of which can be seen in the aforementioned example of Little Hans. Hysteric and Obsessional Neurosis These distinctions illustrate that the aetiology of Neuroses represent varied individual causalities which cannot be extrapolated to uniform anomalies in family organization.
Stage 3:
In the third dialectic the child identifying as the mother’s phallus is abandoned for identifying with the father.
The paternal metaphor represents the logic of Oedipal relations, specifically the relations between the ‘Name Of The Father’ signifier and its symbolic castration of the ‘mother’s desire’ signifier. As the Name Of The Father signifier is the name of the prohibition function, Lacan (1953) would further posit that functional deficiency of the father is source of the pathogenic effects of the Oedipus Complex, as this failure does not allow for the substitution of the mother’s desire for the subject and vice versa. Essentially castration has not occurred, thus it is posited either Perversion or Psychosis will be the resultant psychical structures.
However, in the normalization alternative, the paternal metaphor’s constitutive function affords symbolic castration, yet it occasions real effects which radically alters the subjects being (Rodriguez, 1996). With castration, the N.O.T.F becomes included in the subject’s unconscious signifying chain as a distorted version of the prohibitory law (that is willed by the Other). Whereas the imago of the father instantiated is considered ambiguous as it represents authority as the incarnation of repression and the revelation of sexuality adjuvant in accessing reality (Lacan, 1938).
For Lacan, the oedipal desire between the infant and the first object demonstrates a sexual regression, as this Oedipal desire affords the opportunity for reactivating the weaning tendencies (Lacan, 1938. p.41). In retrospect, the weaning complex can be inferred as the instigation precursor of oedipal movement and conflict while Identification (with the father) marks both the beginning and the end of Oedipal Complex.
Castration and the Resolution of Oedipus Complex
Identification with the father imago produces within the individual the ego-ideal and the super-ego; the former represents the effort of conscious sublimation, which eventuates the constitution of the subject’s reality. While the latter superego is an unconscious agency responsible for the repression of sexual desire for the mother. These agencies respectively represent the introjection of the paternal metaphor’s dual functionality in the decline of the Oedipus Complex, (Rodriguez 1996; Evans 2006). Internalizing the signifier establishes a law overseeing the subject’s position within the symbolic order.
Lacan’s advancement of the Oedipus Complex is centered on these two distinct identifications, one with the imaginary phallus, the other with the symbolic phallus (Borch-Jacobsen & Brick, 1994). Again, this may be illustrated as a sophisticated variant of the superego and ego-ideal distinction, which afford the ‘Symbolic’ becoming a fundamental structure of human desire.
Thus, successful repression of the Oedipus Complex has direct influence establishing the neurotic character of the individual and interrupting the libidinal development by on-setting the latency period of sexual life.
To Conclude;
from reading this essay it should be understood that the Oedipus Complex is the instrument for the social and sexual normalization of Desire. From polymorphous to structured desiring that conforms to the gender, the cultural permittance and instinctual mechanisms engaged at puberty following the latency period.
If the prohibition law could have a mandate, it would read; be like me in that you do not condone incest. But do not be like me in that you desire the mother. Fortify the ego, surmount your oedipal attachment, respect the prohibition and construct the same prohibitory obstacle in yourself.
References
Borch-Jacobsen, M., & Brick, D. (1994). The Oedipus Problem in Freud and Lacan. Critical Inquiry, 20(2), 267–282.
Costello, S. J. (2002). The pale criminal: Psychoanalytic perspectives. Routledge.
Evans, D. (2006). An introductory dictionary of Lacanian psychoanalysis. Routledge.
Feher-Gurewich, J. (2003). A Lacanian approach to the logic of perversion. The Cambridge Companion to Lacan, 191–207.
Lacan, J. (1938). Family complexes in the formation of the individual (C. Gallagher, Trans.). Unpublished manuscript, St. Vincent’s Hospital, Dublin.
Lacan, J. (1969/2007). The Seminar, Book XVII: The Other Side of Psychoanalysis, 1969–1970. Trans: R. Grigg). New York: Norton.
Leader, D. (2003). Lacan’s myths. The Cambridge Companion to Lacan, 35–49.
Redfearn, J. W. (2018). My self, my many selves. Routledge.
Rodriguez, L. (1996). The family and the subject: a Lacanian perspective. Analysis, (7), 21.
