Lacanian Psychoanalysis - Beginning with Mental Automaticity
Mental Automaticity
Clérambault's concept: unifies seemingly disparate phenomena of madness under a common theme, which is something imposed by the "external world," such as thought resonance or evaluations of others.
In modern psychology, individuals are influenced by external factors, such as social opinion and others' evaluations. Individuals might not be consciously aware of this influence process.
However, Lacan further developed this concept, examining numerous ideas such as the Unconscious, Language, the Other, and Desire from the concept of the Subject.
The Subject
Lacan believed that the Subject is constructed through language and the Other. He emphasized the formation process of the subject within the language and symbolic system, noting that an individual's subjectivity is established through relationships with the Other.
This is similar to Hegel's master-slave dialectic, where one consciousness depends on another for its existence.
The Unconscious
Lacan, deeply influenced by Freud, explored the unconscious beyond the notion of the subconscious.
Freud's Subconscious
Freud proposed the concept of the subconscious, which resides beneath the conscious mind and contains repressed desires, impulses, and memories that are not accepted by society.
To reveal an individual's subconscious, Freud developed psychoanalytic techniques such as dream interpretation and full speech.
Lacan's Unconscious
Language, as a transcendental structure, exists prior to the subject's existence and thus is not even consciously recognized by the subject (compared to the subconscious).
The unconscious is not the content of repressed desires in the subconscious but is a structure formed by the internalization of the language system within the subject.
The unconscious is structured like a language.
Language
Lacan's breakthrough was in developing psychoanalysis into the field of language structure analysis. The focus of psychoanalysis shifted from individual real-life individuals to symbolic objects, referred to as subjects.
When a subject gazes at the starry sky, he sees an endless universe. Unbeknownst to him, language is a world much larger than the universe. And it is the language that constructs the subject itself.
Language resides in the symbolic order, replacing the subject's imaginary images with differentiated signifiers.
When the subject enters the symbolic order, their jouissance is castrated, leading to the emergence of desire.
It is also when the subject enters the symbolic order that they become a member of society.
The Other
The subject and the Other are relative concepts, or perhaps one could say, the subject is the Other, and the Other is the subject.
In Lacan's theory, the subject's ego-identity is formed through interaction with the Other.
Lacan particularly distinguished between the Big Other and the little other.
The Big Other: Language
The Big Other represents the social symbolic order. On a deeper level, the Big Other is the structure of language.
In the symbolic order, the subject is trapped within language, struggling with various signifiers (essentially just one signifier).
The Little Other: The Mirror
The little other is the subject's mirror. The subject establishes ego-identity through the mirror.
Obviously, the subject is alienated at this stage, with the original essence lost and never to be recovered.
Desire
Lacan's theory of desire is quite fascinating. He discussed the psychological pursuits of the subject at different stages, revolving around needs, demands, and desires.
This deserves a standalone article (or even several) to be fully elaborated.