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Unit 13: The Insistence of the Letter in the Unconscious—Jacques Lacan: An Introduction

The Symbolic Notes
In his Seminar IV, "La relation d'objet," Lacan argues that the concepts of "Law" and "Structure" are
unthinkable without language—thus the Symbolic is a linguistic dimension. This order is not
equivalent to language, however, since language involves the Imaginary and the Real as well. The
dimension proper to language in the Symbolic is that of the signifier—that is, a dimension in which
elements have no positive existence, but which are constituted by virtue of their mutual differences.
The Symbolic is also the field of radical alterity-that is, the Other; the unconscious is the discourse
of this Other. It is the realm of the Law that regulates desire in the Oedipus complex. The Symbolic
is the domain of culture as opposed to the Imaginary order of nature. As important elements in the
Symbolic, the concepts of death and lack (manque) connive to make of the pleasure principle the
regulator of the distance from the Thing ("das Ding an sich") and the death drive that goes
"beyond the pleasure principle by means of repetition"—"the death drive is only a mask of the
Symbolic order."
By working in the Symbolic order, the analyst is able to produce changes in the subjective position
of the analysand. These changes will produce imaginary effects because the Imaginary is structured
by the Symbolic.
The Real
Lacan's concept of the Real dates back to 1936 and his doctoral thesis on psychosis. It was a term
that was popular at the time, particularly with Émile Meyerson, who referred to it as "an ontological
absolute, a true being-in-itself". Lacan returned to the theme of the Real in 1953 and continued to
develop it until his death. The Real, for Lacan, is not synonymous with reality. Not only opposed
to the Imaginary, the Real is also exterior to the Symbolic. Unlike the latter, which is constituted
in terms of oppositions (i.e. presence/absence), "there is no absence in the Real." Whereas the
Symbolic opposition "presence/absence" implies the possibility that something may be missing
from the Symbolic, "the Real is always in its place." If the Symbolic is a set of differentiated
elements (signifiers), the Real in itself is undifferentiated-it bears no fissure. The Symbolic introduces
"a cut in the real" in the process of signification: "it is the world of words that creates the world of
things-things originally confused in the "here and now" of the all in the process of coming into
being." The Real is that which is outside language and that resists symbolization absolutely. In
Seminar XI Lacan defines the Real as "the impossible" because it is impossible to imagine, impossible
to integrate into the Symbolic, and impossible to attain. It is this resistance to symbolization that
lends the Real its traumatic quality. Finally, the Real is the object of anxiety, insofar as it lacks any
possible mediation and is "the essential object which is not an object any longer, but this something
faced with which all words cease and all categories fail, the object of anxiety par excellence."
Conception of Desire
Lacan's conception of desire is central to his theories and follows Freud's concept of Wunsch. The
aim of psychoanalysis is to lead the analysand and to uncover the truth about his or her desire, but
this is possible only if that desire is articulated. Lacan wrote that "it is only once it is formulated,
named in the presence of the other, that desire appears in the full sense of the term." This naming
of desire "is not a question of recognizing something which would be entirely given. In naming it,
the subject creates, brings forth, a new presence in the world." Psychoanalysis teaches the patient
"to bring desire into existence." The truth about desire is somehow present in discourse, although
discourse is never able to articulate the entire truth about desire-whenever discourse attempts to
articulate desire, there is always a leftover or surplus.
In "The Signification of the Phallus," Lacan distinguishes desire from need and demand. Need is
a biological instinct that is articulated in demand, yet demand has a double function: on the one
hand, it articulates need, and on the other, acts as a demand for love. Even after the need articulated
in demand is satisfied, the demand for love remains unsatisfied. This remainder is desire. For
Lacan, "desire is neither the appetite for satisfaction nor the demand for love, but the difference
that results from the subtraction of the first from the second." Lacan adds that "desire begins to
take shape in the margin in which demand becomes separated from need." Hence desire can never

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