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→The Imaginary Father
==The Imaginary Father==
The [[imaginary]] [[father]] is an [[imago]], the composite of all the [[imaginary]] constructs that the [[subject]] builds up in [[fantasy]] around the figure of the [[father]]. This [[imaginary]] construction often bears little relationship to the [[father]] as he is in [[reality]].<ref>{{S4}} p. 220</ref> The [[imaginary]] [[father]] can be construed as an ideal [[father]],<ref>{{S1}} p.156</ref></ref>{{E}} p.321</ref> or the opposite, as "the father who has fucked the kid up."<ref>{{S7}} p.308</ref>
<!-- In the former guise, the [[imaginary]] [[father]] is the prototype of [[God]]-figures in [[religion]]s, an all-powerful protector. In the latter role, the [[imaginary]] [[father]] is both the terrifying father of the [[primal horde]] who imposes the [[incest]] [[taboo]] on his sons,<ref>[[Freud]] 1912-3</ref> and the agent of [[privation]], the [[father]] whom the daughter blames for depriving her of the [[symbolic]] [[phallus]], or its equivalent, a [[child]].<ref>{{S4}} p. 98</ref> In both guises, though, whether as the [[ideal]] [[father]] or as the [[father|cruel]] [[father|agent]] of [[privation]], the [[imaginary]] [[father]] is seen as omnipotent.<ref>{{S4}} pp. 275-6</ref> -->
[[Psychosis]] and [[perversion]] both involve, in different ways, a reduction of the [[father|symbolic father]] to the [[father|imaginary father]].
