Terms Used by Psychoanalysis

HE FOLLOWING TERMS are presented in alphabetical order;

however, someone beginning to learn psychoanalysis needs to stay conscious of

the ways that each major theorist uses particular terms in his or her particular
way. I have indicated those terms that are particularly tied to an individual
theorist, as well as those terms that are used differently by two different
psychoanalysts. For an introduction to the four psychoanalytical theorists currently influencing
the discipline, see the Psychoanalysis Modules in this site. Whenever one of these terms are used
elsewhere in the Guide to Theory, a hyperlink will eventually (if it does not already) allow you to
review the term in the bottom frame of your browser window. The menu on the left allows you
to check out the available terms without having to scroll through the list below. Note that the
left-hand frame works best in Explorer, Mozilla, and Netscape 4; you may experience some bugs
in Netscape 6 and Opera. (See the Guide to the Guide for suggestions.) I will also soon provide
an alternate menu option; for now, just scroll down.

A
The Abject, abjection (Kristeva):
Our reaction (horror, vomit) to a threatened breakdown in meaning caused by the loss of
the distinction between subject and object or between self and other. The primary
example is the corpse (which traumatically reminds us of our own materiality); however,
other items can elicit the same reaction: the open wound, shit, sewage, even a particularly
immoral crime (e.g. Auschwitz). Kristeva posits that abjection is something that we must
experience in our psychosexual development before entering into the mirror stage, that is,
the establishment of such boundaries as self and other or human and animal. See the
Kristeva module on the abject.Kristeva also associates the abject with the maternal since
the establishment of the boundary between self and other marks our movement out of the
chora. See the Kristeva module on psychosexual development.
Anal-Sadistic Phase:
The second phase of early childhood psychosexual development, according to Freud,
when pleasure is oriented to the anal orifice and defecation (roughly 2-4 years of
age). This phase is split between active and passive impulses: the impulse to mastery on
the one hand, which can easily become cruelty; the impulse to scopophilia (love of
gazing), on the other hand. According to Freud, the child's pleasure in defecation is
connected to his or her pleasure in creating something of his or her own, a pleasure that
for women is later transferred to child-bearing. See Freud Module 1 on psychosexual
development.

Between the two deaths (Lacan):

The space of pure death drive without desire, between symbolic death and actual death.
Lacan associates this space with an unconditional, insistent demand, like the demand
from the ghost of Hamlet's father insisting that he be revenged. In pop culture, this
position is often taken up by the living dead (ghosts, vampires, zombies, etc.), by, as
Zizek puts it, "the fantasy of a person who does not want to stay dead but returns again
and again to pose a threat to the living" (Looking Awry 22)..

C
Castration Complex:
The early childhood fear of castration that Freud and Lacan both saw as an integral part of
our psychosexual development. The castration complex is closely associated with
the Oedipus complex, according to Freud: "the reaction to the threats against the child
aimed at putting a stop to his early sexual activities and attributed to his father"
(Introductory Lectures 15.208). The young child with primitive desires, in coming face to
face with the laws and conventions of society (including the prohibitions against incest
and murder), will tend to align prohibition with castration (something that is sometimes
reinforced by parents if they warn against, for example, masturbation by saying that the
child will in some way be punished bodily, eg. by going blind). Lacan builds on this
Freudian concept in defining the Law of the Father.
Cathexis (cathexes, to cathect):
The libido's charge of energy. Freud often described the functioning of psychosexual
energies in mechanical terms, influenced perhaps by the dominance of the steam engine at
the end of the nineteenth century. He often described the libido as the producer of
energies that, if blocked, required release in other ways. If an individual is frustrated in
his or her desires, Freud often represented that frustration as a blockage of energies that
would then build up and require release in other ways: for example, by way
ofregression and the "re-cathecting" of former positions (ie. fixation at
the oral or anal phase and the enjoyment of former sexual objects ["object-cathexes"],
including auto-eroticism). When the ego blocks such efforts to discharge one's cathexis
by way ofregression, i.e. when the ego wishes to repress such desires, Freud uses the term
"anti-cathexis" or counter-charge. Like a steam engine, the libido's cathexis then builds up
until it finds alternative outlets, which can lead to sublimation or to the formation of
sometimes disabling symptoms.
Chora:
The earliest stage in your psychosexual development (0-6 months), according to Julia
Kristeva. In this pre-lingual stage of development, you were dominated by a chaotic mix
of perceptions, feelings, and needs. You did not distinguish your own self from that of
your mother or even the world around you. Rather, you spent your time taking into
yourself everything that you experienced as pleasurable without any acknowledgment of
boundaries. This is the stage, then, when you were closest to the pure materiality of
existence, or what Lacan terms "the Real." At this stage, you were, according to Kristeva,
purely dominated by your drives (both life drives and the death drives). See the Kristeva
Module on Psychosexual Development.

Condensation:
Condensation is one of the methods by which the repressed returns in hidden ways. For
example, in dreams multiple dream-thoughts are often combined and amalgamated into a
single element of the manifest dream (e.g. symbols). According to Freud, every situation
in a dream seems to be put together out of two or more impressions or experiences. One
need only think about how people and places tend to meld into composite figures in our
dreams. The same sort of condensation can occur in symptom-formation. The other
method whereby the repressed hides itself is displacement.

D
Death Drive :
The bodily instinct to return to the state of quiescence that preceded our birth. The death
drive, according to Freud's later writings (Beyond the Pleasure Principle, "The
Uncanny"), explains why humans are drawn to repeat painful or traumatic events (even
though such repetition appears to contradict our instinct to seek pleasure). Through such
a compulsion to repeat, the human subject attempts to "bind" the trauma, thus allowing
the subject to return to a state of quiescence. See the Freud Module on Trauma and
Transference.
Displacement:
Displacement is one of the methods by which the repressed returns in hidden ways. For
example, in dreams the affect (emotions) associated with threatening impulses are often
transferred elsewhere (displaced), so that, for example, apparently trivial elements in the
manifest dream seem to cause extraordinary distress while "what was the essence of the
dream-thoughts finds only passing and indistinct representation in the dream" ("New
Introductory Lectures" 22.21). For Freud, "Displacement is the principle means used in
the dream-distortion to which the dream-thoughts must submit under the influence of the
censorship" ("New Introductory Lectures" 22.21). The same sort of displacement can
occur in symptom-formation. The other method whereby the repressed hides itself
is condensation.
Drives:
Instinctual (pre-lingual) bodily impulses or instincts, which Freud ultimately decided
could be reduced to two primary drives: 1) the life drives (both the pleasure principle and
the reality principle); and 2) the death drive, which Freud saw as even more primal than
the life drives.

E
Ego:
For Freud, the ego is "the representative of the outer world to the id" ("Ego and the Id"
708). In other words, the ego represents and enforces the reality-principle whereas
the id is concerned only with the pleasure-principle. Whereas the ego is oriented towards
perceptions in the real world, the id is oriented towards internal instincts; whereas the ego
is associated with reason and sanity, theid belongs to the passions. The ego, however, is
never able fully to distinguish itself from the id, of which the ego is, in fact, a part, which
is why in his pictorial representation of the mind Freud does not provide a hard separation

between the ego and the id. The ego could also be said to be a defense against
the superego and its ability to drive the individual subject towards inaction or suicide as a
result of crippling guilt. Freud sometimes represents the ego as continually struggling to
defend itself from three dangers or masters: "from the external world, from the libido of
the id, and from the severity of the super-ego" ("Ego and the Id" 716).
Ego-Ideal (Freud):
The ideal of perfection that the ego strives to emulate. For Freud, the ego-ideal is closely
bound up with our super-ego. The super-ego is "the vehicle of the ego ideal by which
the ego measures itself, which it emulates, and whose demand for ever greater perfection
it strives to fulfil" ("New Introductory Lectures" 22.65). Given the intimate connection of
the super-ego to the Oedipus complex, the ego-ideal is likely "the precipitate of the old
picture of the parents, the expression of admiration for the perfection which the child then
attributed to them" ("New Introductory Lectures" 22.65). It is also tied up with
childhood narcissism (the belief in one's own perfection), which in adulthood can take as
its substitute the perfection of the ego-ideal.
Ego-Ideal and "ideal ego"(Lacan):
Lacan makes a distinction between the "ideal ego" and the "ego ideal," the former of
which he associates with the imaginary order, the latter of which he associates with the
symbolic order. Lacan's "ideal ego" is the ideal of perfection that the ego strives to
emulate; it first affected the subject when he saw himself in a mirror during the mirror
stage, which occurs around 6-18 months of age (see the Lacan module on psychosexual
development). Seeing that image of oneself established a discord between the idealizing
image in the mirror (bounded, whole, complete) and the chaotic reality of the one's body
between 6-18 months, thus setting up the logic of the imaginary's fantasy construction
that would dominate the subject's psychic life ever after. For Lacan, the "ego-ideal," by
contrast, is when the subject looks at himself as if from that ideal point; to look at oneself
from that point of perfection is to see one's life as vain and useless. The effect, then, is to
invert one's "normal" life, to see it as suddenly repulsive.

F
Fetishism (the fetish):
The displacement of desire and fantasy onto alternative objects or body parts (eg. a foot
fetish or a shoe fetish), in order to obviate a subject's confrontation with the castration
complex. Freud came to realize in his essay on "Fetishism" that the fetishist is able at one
and the same time to believe in his phantasy and to recognize that it is nothing but a
phantasy. And yet, the fact of recognizing the phantasy as phantasy in no way reduces its
power over the individual. Octave Mannoni, in an influential essay, phrased this
paradoxical logic in this way: "je sais bien, mais quand-mme" or "I know very well, but
nevertheless." Zizek builds on this idea in theorizing the nature of ideology, which
follows a similar contradictory logic. Kristeva goes so far as to associate all language with
fetishism: "It is perhaps unavoidable that, when a subject confronts the factitiousness of
object relation, when he stands at the place of the want that founds it, the fetish becomes a
life preserver, temporary and slippery, but nonetheless indispensable. But is not exactly
language our ultimate and inseparable fetish? And language, precisely, is based on
fetishist denial ('I know that, but just the same,' 'the sign is not the thing, but just the

same,' etc.) and defines us in our essence as speaking beings" (37).

Fixation:
When one's desire is tied to an object of desire connected to an earlier phase in one's
psychosexual development. Example: a fixation on oral pleasure, which Freud would see
as "stuck" at the oral phase even though other aspects of one's development may have
proceded normally: "I regard it as possible in the case of every particular sexual trend that
some portions of it have stayed behind at earlier stages of its development, even though
other portions may have reached their final goal" (Introductory Lectures16.340). This
term is closely related to regression. See also Freud: Module I on psychosexual
development.

G
The Gaze (Lacan):
The Gaze in Lacan refers to the uncanny sense that the
object of our eye's look or glance is somehow looking
back at us, a feeling that affects us in the same way
as castration anxiety(reminding us of the lack at the heart
of the symbolic order). We may believe that we are in
control of our eye's look; however, any feeling of
scopophilic power is always undone by the fact that the
the materiality of existence (the Real) always exceeds the
meaning structures of the symbolic order. Lacan's favorite
example for the Gaze is Hans Holbein's The
Ambassadors (pictured here). When you look at the
painting, it at first gives you a sense that you are in control of your look; however, you
then notice a blot at the bottom of the canvas, which you can only make out if you look at
the painting from the side, from which point you can make out that the blot is, in fact, a
skull staringback at you. By having the object of our eye's look look back at us, we are
reminded of our own lack, of the fact that the symbolic order is separated only by a
fragile border from the materiality ofthe Real. The symbols of power in Holbein's
painting (wealth, power, ambition) are thus completely undercut. The magical floating
object "reflects our own nothingness, in the figure of the death's head" (Lacan, Four
Fundamental 92). See the Lacan module on the Gaze.
Genital Phase:
"Normal" heterosexuality. According to Freud, heterosexual intercourse should be the
goal of psychosexual development (a position that has since been questioned by feminists
and queer theorists; see Gender and Sex.) At this point in "normal" development, Freud
writes, one witnesses"the subordination of all the component sexual instincts under the
primacy of the genitals" (Introductory Lectures 16.328). In this way, the individual enters
adulthood and ensures the survival of the species. For Freud, a desire
for oral or anal pleasure constitutes a fixation on or a regression to an earlier stage in
one's psychosexual development.

Hysteria:
The symptomatic return of repressed childhood sexual trauma. The two main forms of
hysteria are 1) conversion hysteria, in which the symptoms are manifested on the body
(eg. psychosomatic illness); and 2) anxiety hysteria, in which one feels excessive anxiety
because of an external object (eg. phobias).

I
Id:
The id is the great reservoir of the libido, from which the ego seeks to distinguish itself
through various mechanisms of repression. Because of that repression, the id seeks
alternative expression for those impulses that we consider evil or excessively sexual,
impulses that we often felt as perfectly natural at an earlier or archaic stage and have
since repressed . The id is governed by thepleasure-principle and is oriented towards one's
internal instincts and passions. Freud also argues on occasion that the id represents the
inheritance of the species, which is passed on to us at birth; and yet for Freud the id is, at
the same time, "the dark, inaccessible part of our personality" ("New Introductory
Lectures" 22.73). See also Freud Module I on psychosexual development.
Identification:
This is the process whereby one's ego seeks to emulate another. It is particularly
important in overcoming the Oedipus complex: the young child deals with his primitive
desires by identifying with his parents, imitating them to such an extent that, ultimately,
heintrojects the parental authorityand thus develops a super-ego. Identification is quite
different from object-choice: "If a boy identifies himself with his father, he wants to be
like his father; if he makes him the object of his choice, he wants to have him, to possess
him" ("New Introductory Lectures" 22.63).
Imaginary Order (Lacan):
The fundamental narcissism by which the human subject creates fantasy images of both
himself and his ideal object of desire, according to Lacan. The imaginary order is closely
tied to Lacan's theorization of the mirror stage. What must be remembered is that for
Lacan this imaginary realm continues to exert its influence throughout the life of the adult
and is not merely superceded in the child's movement into the symbolic order. Indeed, the
imaginary and the symbolic are, according to Lacan, inextricably intertwined and work in
tension with the Real. See the Lacan module on the structure of the psyche.
Instinct:
A pre-lingual bodily impulse that drives our actions. Freud makes a distinction between
instinct and the antithesis, conscious/unconscious; an instinct is pre-lingual and, so, can
only be accessed by language, by an idea that represents the instinct. What is repressed is
not properly the instinct itself but "the ideational presentation" of the instinct, which is
just another way of saying that our deepest, primitive drives are beyond our ability to
represent them. Psychoanalysis seeks to make sense of theunconscious, which is to some
extent intelligible and, so, one step removed from instinct. According to Freud, there are
two classes of instincts: 1) Eros or the sexual instincts, which he later saw as compatible
with the self-preservative instincts; and 2) Thanatos or the death-instinct, a natural desire
to "re-establish a state of things that was disturbed by the emergence of life" ("Ego and

the Id" 709). The death-instinct, which he theorized, in part, as a response to World War
I, allowed Freud to explain man's desire for murder and destruction.
Introjection:
The internalization of authority. According to Freud, when you introject the demands of
your parents and, thus by extension, society, these demands become a part of your own
psyche, which then becomes divided between social demands and your ownrepressed,
socially unacceptable desires and needs. An endless process of self-policing occurs as
the super-ego reinforces parental proscriptions long after the parental authority has ceased
to make its demands.
Introversion:
A turn from reality to phantasy. Freud borrowed this term from C. G. Jung and defined it
this way: "introversion denotes the turning away of the libido from the possibilities of real
satisfaction and the hypercathexis of phantasies which have hitherto been tolerated as
innocent" (Introductory Lectures 16.374). For Freud, an example of such introversion is
art, since the artist turns away from real satisfaction to the life of phantasy.

J
Jouissance:
Definition on its way.

K
L
Latency Period:
The period of reduced sexuality that Freud believed occured between approximately age
seven and adolescence. Freud claimed that children went through a "latency period"
during which "we can observe a halt and retrogression in sexual development"
(Introductory Lectures 16.326). During this time, the child also begins the process of
what Freud terms "infantile amnesia": therepression and estrangement of those earliest
childhood memories that we find traumatic, evil and/or overly sexual. Freud warns,
however, that "The latency period may... be absent: it need not bring with it any
interruption of sexual activity and sexual interests" (Introductory Lectures 16.326). See
also Freud: Module 1 on psychosexual development.
Libido:
The sexual drive. Freud believed that the sexual drive is as natural and insistent as hunger
and that the libido manifests its influence as early as birth.

M
Melancholia:
Depression. Freud read melancholia as an example of how the super-ego could go
overboard and cause harm to the individual subject; the melancholic's "superego becomes over-severe, abuses the poor ego, humiliates it and ill-treats it, threatens it
with the direst punishments" ("New Introductory Lectures" 22.61).

Mirror Stage (Lacan):

The young child's identification with his own image (what Lacan terms the "Ideal-I" or
"ideal ego"), a stage that occurs anywhere from 6-18 months of age. For Lacan, this act
marks the primordial recognition of one's self as "I," although at a point before entrance
into language and the symbolic order. This stage's misrecognition
or mconnaissance (seeing an ideal-I where there is a fragmented, chaotic body)
subsequently "characterizes the ego in all its structures" (crits 6). In particular, this
creation of an ideal version of the self gives pre-verbal impetus to the creation
of narcissistic phantasies in the fully developed subject. That fantasy image of oneself can
be filled in by others who we may want to emulate in our adult lives (role models, et
cetera), anyone that we set up as a mirror for ourselves. The mirror stage establishes what
Lacan terms the "imaginary order" and, through the imaginary, continues to assert its
influence on the subject even after the subject enters the symbolic order. See the Lacan
Module on Psychosexual Development.

N
Name-of-the-Father (Lacan):
The laws and restrictions that control both your desire and the rules of communication,
according to Lacan. The Name-of-the-Father is closely bound up with the superego, the
Phallus, the symbolic order, and the Oedipus complex. Note that, according to Lacan, the
Name-of-the-Father has a shadow double in the Father-of-Enjoyment. See the Lacan
module on the structure of the psyche.
Narcissism:
Self-love. Ideally, the libido directs its energies to objects ("object-libido"), including
eventually one's love-object. However, the libido can also attach itself to the ego ("egolibido") to the exclusion of external object-cathexes. This situation leads, according to
Freud, to narcissistic behavior and to narcissistic neuroses such as megalomania. Lacan
makes narcissism an even more central aspect of the human psyche, aligning it with what
he terms the "imaginary order," one of the three major structures of the psyche (along
with the Real and the symbolic order). Lacan suggests that, whereas the zero form of
sexuality for animals is copulation, the zero form of sexuality for humans is masturbation.
The act of sex for humans is so much caught up in our fantasies (our idealized images of
both ourselves and our sexual partners) that it is ultimately narcissistic. As Lacan puts it,
"That's what love is. It's one's own ego that one loves in love, one's own ego made real on
the imaginary level" (Freud's Papers 142).
Neurosis (neuroses, neurotic):
The formation of behavioral or psychosomatic symptoms as a result of the return of
the repressed. A neurosis represents an instance where the ego's efforts to deal with its
desires through repression, displacement, etc. fail: "A person only falls ill of a neurosis if
hisego has lost the capacity to allocate his libido in some way" (Introductory
Lectures 16.387). The failure of the ego and the increased insistence of the libido lead
to symptoms that are as bad or worse than the conflict they are designed to replace. This
term should be carefully distinguished from psychosis.

O
Object:
In psychoanalysis, "object" often refers to the object of one's sexual desire: Freud, for
example, refers to one's "object-choice," the earliest one being the mother (and before her
the mother's breast). Freud also refers to "object-cathexes," objects that have been imbued
with a sexual charge. "Object-choice" should be carefully distinguished
from identification.
Oedipus Complex:
For Freud, the childhood desire to sleep with the mother and to kill the father. Freud
describes the source of this complex in hisIntroductory Lectures (Twenty-First Lecture):
"You all know the Greek legend of King Oedipus, who was destined by fate to kill his
father and take his mother to wife, who did everything possible to escape the oracle's
decree and punished himself by blinding when he learned that he had none the less
unwittingly committed both these crimes" (16.330). According to Freud, Sophocles'
play,Oedipus Rex, illustrates a formative stage in each individual's psychosexual
development, when the young child transfers his love object from the breast (the oral
phase) to the mother. At this time, the child desires the mother and resents (even secretly
desires the murder) of the father. (The Oedipus complex is closely connected to
the castration complex.) Such primal desires are, of course, quickly repressed but, even
among the mentally sane, they will arise again in dreams or in literature. Among those
individuals who do not progress properly into the genital phase, the Oedipus Complex,
according to Freud, can still be playing out its psychdrama in various displaced,
abnormal, and/or exaggerated ways. See also Freud Module 3 on repression and Freud
Module 1 on psychosexual development.
Oral Phase:
According to Freud, the earliest phase in a child's psychosexual development, during
which time the mouth and lips take on an erotic charge (roughly 0-2 years of age). The
first sexual object, according to Freudian psychoanalysis, is the mother's breast, followed
by the mother herself. In dealing with the loss of the breast, the young child of the oral
phase naturally turns, for exaample, to thumb-sucking in order to compensate for the loss
of gratification. See Freud Module I on psychosexual development.

P
Perceptual-Conscious System:
Consciousness. According to Freud, "This system is turned towards the external world, it
is the medium for the perceptions arising thence, and during its functioning the
phenemenon of consciousness arises in it" ("New Introductory Lectures" 22.75). He used
this concept, which he often wrote as Pcpt-Cs in order to clarify that the ego is not strictly
analogous to consciousness.note
Perversion:
The pursuit of "abnormal" sexual objects without repression. Freud at one point lists five
forms of perversion, which is to say five ways that an individual "differs from the
normal": "first, by disregarding the barrier of species (the gulf between men and animals),

secondly, by overstepping the barrier against disgust, thirdly that against incest (the
prohibition against seeking sexual satisfaction from near blood-relations), fourthly that
against members of one's own sex and fifthly the transferring of the part played by the
genitals to other organs and areas of the body" (Introductory Lectures 15.208). He makes
clear that a young child will not recognize any of these five points as abnormaland only
does so through the process of education. For this reason, he calls children
"polymorphously perverse" (Introductory Lectures 15.209).
Phallic Phase :
According to Freud, the third phase in a child's psychosexual development, when pleasure
is oriented towards the phallus and urination (roughly 4-7 years of age). For young girls,
the clitoris serves the same function as the penis, acccording to Freud. The trauma
connected with this phase is that of castration, which makes this phase especially
important for the resolution of the Oedipus complex.
Pleasure-Principle and Reality-Principle:
Respectively, the desire for immediate gratification vs. the deferral of that gratification.
Quite simply, the pleasure-principle drives one to seek pleasure and to avoid pain.
However, as one grows up, one begins to learn the need sometimes to endure pain and to
defer gratification because of the exigencies and obstacles of reality: "An ego thus
educated has become 'reasonable'; it no longer lets itself be governed by the pleasure
principle, but obeys the reality principle, which also at bottom seeks to obtain pleasure,
but pleasure which is assured through taking account of reality, even though it is pleasure
postponed and diminished" (Introductory Lectures 16.357).
Polymorphous Perversity:
The ability to find erotic pleasure out of any part of the body. According to Freud, a
young child is, by nature, "polymorphously perverse" (Introductory Lectures 15.209),
which is to say that, before education in the conventions of civilized society, a child will
turn to various bodily parts for sexual gratification and will not obey the rules that in
adults determine perverse behavior. Education however quickly suppresses the
polymorphous possibilities for sexual gratification in the child, eventually leading,
throughrepression, to an amnesia about such primitive desires. Some adults retain such
polymorphous perversity, according to Freud.
Preconscious:
Latent parts of the brain that are readily available to the conscious mind, although not
currently in use. Freud used this term to make clear that the repressed is a part of
the unconscious, not all of it, which is to say that the repressed does not comprise the
whole unconscious. Many facts, memories, etc. are not actively engaged by the conscious
mind but remain available for possible use at a future time. The preconscious refers to
those facts of which we are not currently conscious but which exist in latency and can be
easily called up when needed. Other facts, memories, etc. are actively repressed by the
conscious mind and thus are not accessible to the mind except by way of the
psychoanalytical "talking cure." Eventually Freud gave up the antithesis,
conscious/unconscious, because of such problems of definition and turned instead to the
tripartite division, super-ego, ego, and id.
Projection:

Scapegoating. Cutting off what the super-ego perceives as "bad" aspects of oneself (e.g.
weakness or homosexual desire) andprojecting them onto someone else "over there"
where they can be condemned, punished, etc..
Psychosis:
A mental condition whereby the patient completely loses touch with reality. Freud
originally distinguished between neurosis and psychosis in the following way:
in neurosis the ego suppresses part of the id out of allegiance to reality, whereas in
psychosis it lets itself be carried away by the id and detached from a part of reality
(5.202).

Q
R
Reaction-Formation:
The blocking of desire by its opposite. "Reaction-formation" is the term Freud uses to
describe the mechanism whereby the egoreacts to the impulses of the id by creating an
antithetical formation that blocks repressed cathexes. For example, someone who feels
homosexual desire might repress that desire by turning it into hatred for all
homosexuals. See also substitute-formation.
The Real (Lacan):
The state of nature from which we have been forever severed by our entrance into
language. Only as neo-natal children were we close to this state of nature, a state in which
there is nothing but need. A baby needs and seeks to satisfy those needs with no sense for
any separation between itself and the external world or the world of others. For this
reason, Lacan sometimes represents this state of nature as a time of fullness or
completeness that is subsequently lost through the entrance into language. The primordial
animal need for copulation (for example, when animals are in heat) similarly corresponds
to this state of nature. There is a need followed by a search for satisfaction. As far as
humans are concerned, however, "the real is impossible," as Lacan was fond of saying. It
is impossible in so far as we cannot express it in language because the very entrance into
language marks our irrevocable separation from the real. Still, the real continues to exert
its influence throughout our adult lives since it is the rock against which all our fantasies
and linguistic structures ultimately fail. The real for example continues to erupt whenever
we are made to acknowledge the materiality of our existence, an acknowledgement that is
usually perceived as traumatic (since it threatens our very "reality"), although it also
drives Lacan's sense of jouissance. The Real works in tension with the imaginary
order and the symbolic order. See the Lacan module on the structure of the psyche.
Regression:
The psychic reversion to childhood desires. When normally functioning desire meets with
powerful external obstacles, which prevent satisfaction of those desires, the subject
sometimes regresses to an earlier phase in normal psychosexual
development."Regression," as a term, is closely connected to the term, fixation; the
stronger one's fixations on earlier sexual objects(eg. the mouth, the anus), the more likely
that, when a subject is confronted with obstacles to heterosexual satisfaction, that subject

will respond by way of regression to an earlier phase. Example: a normally functioning

woman is dumped by her boyfriend and starts over-eating (thus regressing to the oral
phase). Regression can result either in neurosis (if accompanied by repression) or
inperversion: "A regression of the libido without repression would never produce
a neurosis but would lead to a perversion" (Introductory Lectures 16.344). In our
example, the neurotic begins over-eating; the pervert gives up men and becomes a lesbian
(a sexual identity that Freud saw as perversion, though many have since critiqued him on
this point).
Repetition Compulsion :
The mind's tendency to repeat traumatic events in order to deal with them. The repetition
can take the form of dreams, storytelling, or even hallucination. This compulsion is
closely tied up with the death drive. See Freud Module V on transference and trauma.
Repression:
The ego's mechanism for suppressing and forgetting its instinctual impulses. See Freud
Module III on repression.
Retroaction:
Definition on its way.

S
Sublimation:
The redirection of sexual desire to "higher" aims. Freud saw sublimation as a protection
against illness, since it allowed the subject to respond to sexual frustration (lack of
gratification of the sexual impulse) by taking a new aim that, though still "genetically"
(Introductory Lectures 16.345) related to the sexual impulse, is no longer properly sexual
but social. In this way, civilization has been able to place "social aims higher than the
sexual ones, which are at bottom self-interested" (Introductory Lectures 16.345). This is
not to say that the "free mobility of the libido" (Introductory Lectures 16.346) is ever
fully contained: "sublimation is never able to deal with more than a certain fraction of
libido" (Introductory Lectures 16.346).
Substitute-Formation:
A substitute-formation is a result of repression and the subsequent return of
the repressed in an alternate form. For example, in childhood anxiety-hysteria, the child is
often working through his libidinal attitude toand fear ofhis or her father: "After
repression, this impulse vanishes out of consciousness: the father does not appear in
consciousness as an object for the libido. As a substitute for him we find in a
corresponding situation some animal which is more or less suited to be an object of
dread" ("Repression" 426). The substitute-formation thus follows the path
of displacement. See also reaction-formation.
Super-Ego:
The super-ego is the faculty that seeks to police what it deems unacceptable desires; it
represents all moral restrictions and is the "advocate of a striving towards perfection"
("New Introductory Lectures" 22.67). Originally, the super-ego had the task
ofrepressing the Oedipus complex and, so, is closely caught up in the psychodramas of

the id; it is, in fact, a reaction-formationagainst the primitive object-choices of the id,
specifically those connected with the Oedipus complex. The young heterosexual male
deals with the Oedipus complex by identifying with and internalizing the father and his
prohibitions: "The super-ego retains the character of the father, while the more intense
the Oedipus complex was and the more rapidly it succumbed to repression (under the
influence of discipline, religious teaching, schooling and reading), the more exacting later
on is the domination of the super-ego over the egoin the form of conscience or perhaps
of an unconscious sense of guilt" ("Ego and the Id" 706). Given its intimate connection
with the Oedipus complex, the super-ego is associated with the dread of castration. As we
grow into adulthood, various other individuals or organizations will take over the place of
the father and his prohibitions (the church, the law, the police, the government). Because
of its connection to the id, the superego has the ability to become excessively moral and
thus lead to destructive effects. The super-ego is closely connected to the "ego ideal."
Symbols:
Elements in the world that have come to hold specific, if repressed, sexual meaning for
the human species. According to Freud, thedisplacements and condensations effected
by repression can sometimes take on such rigid form that that take on the quality of
symbols, which, according to Freud, have similar meanings for all humans. In other
words, such repressions become phylogenetic: they speak to the whole development of
the human race and constitute a racial heritage. For this reason, Freud sometimes referred
to the id as the inheritance of the species. C. G. Jung broke from Freud in 1913 and
pursued this aspect of psychoanalytical theory, in particular.
Symbolic Order (Lacan):
The social world of linguistic communication, intersubjective relations, knowledge of
ideological conventions, and the acceptance of the law (also called the "big Other"). Once
a child enters into language and accepts the rules and dictates of society, it is able to deal
with others. The acceptance of language's rules is aligned with the Oedipus complex,
according to Lacan. The symbolic is made possible because of your acceptance of
the Name-of-the-Father, those laws and restrictions that control both your desire and the
rules of communication. Through recognition of the Name-of-the-Father, you are able to
enter into a community of others. The symbolic, through language, is "the pact which
links... subjects together in one action. The human action par excellence is originally
founded on the existence of the world of the symbol, namely on laws and contracts"
(Freud's Papers 230). The symbolic order works in tension with the imaginary
order and the Real. It is closely bound up with the superego and the phallus. See theLacan
module on the structure of the psyche.
Symptoms:
Behaviors or bodily abnormalities that are caused by the return of the repressed.
According to psychoanalysis, insistent desires that the individual feels s/he
must repress will often find alternative paths toward satisfaction and therefore manifest
themselves as symptoms. Freud defines a symptom thus: "A symptom is a sign of, and a
substitute for, an instinctual satisfaction which has remained in abeyance; it is a
consequence of the process of repression" ("Inhibitions, Symptoms, and Anxiety" 20.91).
Symptoms tend to be activities that are detrimental or perhaps only useless to one's life. In
extreme cases, such symptoms "can result in an extraordinary impoverishment of the

subject in regard to the mental energy available to him and so in paralysing him for all the
important tasks of life" (Introductory Lectures 16.358).

T
Transference:
The displacement of one's unresolved conflicts, dependencies, and aggressions onto a
substitute object (e.g. substituting a lover, spouse, etc. for one's parent). This operation
can also occur in the psychoanalytical cure, when a patient transfers onto the analyst
feelings that were previously directed to another object. By working through this
transference of feelings onto the analyst, the patient can come to grips with the actual
cause of his or her feelings. See Freud Module V on transference and trauma.

U
The Unconscious:
See Freud Module II on the unconscious.

V
W
Wish-Fulfillment:
Definition on its way.

X
Y
Z