Name-of-the-Father

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The Name-of-the-Father (Nom-du-Père) is a central concept in the work of Jacques Lacan, designating not the empirical or biological father but a symbolic function that introduces the human subject into the order of language, law, and desire. As a signifier, the Name-of-the-Father performs a structuring role in mediating the child’s relation to the mother’s desire, instituting the Oedipus complex, and enabling the formation of subjectivity. It is through this function that the subject is separated from the immediacy of the maternal relation and inscribed within the Symbolic Order.

Lacan first articulates the expression in the early 1950s, but its conceptual roots lie in the Freudian theory of the father. Drawing upon Sigmund Freud’s analysis of the Oedipus complex and the paternal function in the formation of conscience, Lacan reformulates the father in structural and linguistic terms. The father is no longer conceived primarily as a rival or object of identification but as a signifying operator that institutes prohibition and makes possible the articulation of desire within language.

In a programmatic formulation from his essay “The Function and Field of Speech and Language in Psychoanalysis,” Lacan writes:

“It is in the ‘name of the father’ that we must recognize the support of the symbolic function which, from the dawn of history, has identified his person with the figure of the law.”[1]

This statement condenses the essential thesis: the father is not merely a personal figure but the bearer of law as such. The Name-of-the-Father is thus inseparable from prohibition, from the incest taboo, and from the introduction of a third term that interrupts the imaginary dyad of mother and child.

Clinically, the concept becomes decisive in Lacan’s distinction between neurosis and psychosis. In his seminar on psychosis (1955–1956), Lacan advances the thesis that psychosis results from the foreclosure (forclusion) of the Name-of-the-Father—its radical exclusion from the symbolic order of the subject.[2] The Name-of-the-Father thus becomes the “fundamental signifier” whose presence or absence determines psychic structure.

This article traces the development of the concept from its Freudian foundations through Lacan’s structuralist reformulation and early formalization. The first section examines the paternal function in Freud’s metapsychology, emphasizing the Oedipus complex, the castration complex, and the myth of the primal father. The second section explores Lacan’s early reworking of these themes, situating the Name-of-the-Father within structural linguistics and the theory of the signifier.

I. Freudian Foundations

Although the term “Name-of-the-Father” is Lacan’s invention, its conceptual matrix is unmistakably Freudian. Freud’s elaboration of the Oedipus complex, his theory of the castration complex, and his anthropological speculation in Totem and Taboo provide the structural elements that Lacan will later reinterpret in linguistic terms.

1. The Father in the Oedipus Complex

In Freud’s classical account, the Oedipus complex organizes the child’s libidinal attachments and identifications. The father occupies a dual and ambivalent position: he is both rival and model. On the one hand, the father appears as the obstacle to the child’s exclusive possession of the mother. On the other, he becomes the figure with whom the child ultimately identifies.

In The Ego and the Id (1923), Freud describes the decisive outcome of the Oedipus complex as the formation of the superego:

“The super-ego retains the character of the father, while the more powerful the Oedipus complex was and the more rapidly it succumbed to repression, the stricter will be the domination of the super-ego over the ego later on—in the form of conscience or perhaps of an unconscious sense of guilt.”[3]

The father is thus internalized as a moral agency. The prohibition he embodies does not disappear; it becomes an intrapsychic authority. Freud’s formulation underscores two essential dimensions that Lacan will preserve:

  • The father as the agent of prohibition (especially the incest taboo).
  • The father as the source of identification and idealization.

The child’s ambivalence toward the father—love and hatred, admiration and rivalry—is constitutive of the Oedipal drama. The father threatens castration, yet he is also the bearer of the law that structures desire.

2. The Castration Complex as Structural Limit

Freud situates the threat of castration at the center of Oedipal resolution. In his 1924 paper “The Dissolution of the Oedipus Complex,” he writes:

“The castration complex is the deepest unconscious root of anti-Semitism; for even in the nursery little boys hear that a Jew has something cut off from his penis—a piece of his penis, they think—and this gives them a right to despise Jews.”[4]

While this passage reflects problematic cultural assumptions, it demonstrates Freud’s insistence that castration anxiety is central to the organization of psychic life. Castration marks a limit: it interrupts the fantasy of omnipotence and compels the renunciation of incestuous desire.

For Freud, the acceptance of castration inaugurates sexual difference and establishes the conditions under which desire can be redirected and sublimated. The father’s prohibition thus serves as a structuring principle. It is not merely punitive; it creates the very space within which desire can be articulated and displaced.

Lacan will later radicalize this insight by interpreting castration symbolically rather than biologically. What matters is not the anatomical organ but the signifier that marks lack. Nevertheless, the Freudian thesis remains decisive: without prohibition, there is no law; without law, no structured desire.

3. The Primal Father in Totem and Taboo

Freud’s speculative anthropology in Totem and Taboo (1913) offers a mythic account of the origin of law and social organization. He posits a “primal horde” dominated by a tyrannical father who monopolizes all women and excludes the sons. The sons eventually unite to kill and devour him, an act that founds civilization.

Freud writes:

“One day the brothers who had been driven out came together, killed and devoured their father and so made an end of the patriarchal horde.”[5]

The murder of the primal father is followed by remorse. In an act of deferred obedience, the brothers institute the totemic law prohibiting incest and parricide:

“They revoked their deed by forbidding the killing of the totem, the substitute for the father; and they renounced its fruits by resigning their claim to the women who had now been set free.”[6]

This myth dramatizes several key themes:

  • Law emerges from violence and guilt.
  • Prohibition is retroactively instituted.
  • The father becomes more powerful after death than in life.

The primal father is not simply an individual but the origin of symbolic authority. His death gives rise to the totem, religion, and morality. Freud thus anticipates the idea that the father’s function exceeds the empirical father; it is foundational for social cohesion and the binding of desire.

Lacan will reinterpret this myth not as historical anthropology but as structural allegory. The primal father prefigures what Lacan will formalize as the Name-of-the-Father: a signifier that institutes law by marking prohibition.

4. From Myth to Structure

Freud does not employ the language of structural linguistics. His account remains couched in developmental, mythic, and metapsychological terms. Yet his theory already implies that the father’s importance lies less in his empirical presence than in the function he performs.

The father:

  • Prohibits incest.
  • Institutes law.
  • Generates guilt.
  • Serves as the model for identification.
  • Anchors social order.

Lacan’s intervention consists in translating these functions into the logic of the signifier. The father becomes a position within a symbolic network rather than a person endowed with psychological attributes. The prohibition of incest becomes a linguistic operation that substitutes one signifier for another, inaugurating the subject’s entry into the Symbolic Order.

In this way, Freud’s myth of the primal father and his theory of Oedipal prohibition provide the conceptual groundwork for Lacan’s Name-of-the-Father. The next section turns to Lacan’s structuralist reformulation, where the father is reconceived as a fundamental signifier whose inscription or foreclosure determines the structure of subjectivity.

II. Structuralist Reformulation: Lacan’s Early Teaching

Lacan’s reformulation of the paternal function must be situated within what is often called the “linguistic turn” of psychoanalysis. Beginning in the early 1950s, Lacan rereads Freud through the lens of structural linguistics, particularly the work of Ferdinand de Saussure and Roman Jakobson, as well as structural anthropology. The decisive thesis emerging from this period is that “the unconscious is structured like a language.”[7]

This claim has far-reaching consequences. If the unconscious is structured like a language, then the father’s function cannot be understood merely as a personal influence or developmental stage. It must be conceptualized as a position within the structure of signifiers. The Name-of-the-Father thus emerges not as a psychological trait but as a symbolic operator.

1. The Symbolic Father

Lacan distinguishes rigorously between three registers: the Imaginary, the Symbolic, and the Real. The father appears differently in each:

  • The imaginary father is the father as image—rival, ideal, or threatening figure.
  • The real father is the empirical father in his contingent, embodied existence.
  • The symbolic father is the function that represents law and prohibition.

The Name-of-the-Father belongs to the third register. It is the signifier that represents the law within the Symbolic Order. As Lacan writes in “The Function and Field of Speech and Language in Psychoanalysis”:

“It is in the name of the father that we must recognize the support of the symbolic function which, from the dawn of history, has identified his person with the figure of the law.”[1]

The crucial point is that the “person” of the father is secondary. What is primary is the symbolic function that supports law. The father’s authority does not derive from strength or personality but from his position as bearer of a signifier.

This shift from person to signifier reflects Lacan’s structuralism. The subject is not formed through identification with a substantial object but through inscription in a network of differences. The Name-of-the-Father is one such signifier—indeed, the signifier that secures the coherence of the symbolic system.

2. The Nom / Non: The Father’s “No”

Lacan famously exploits the near-homophony in French between nom (name) and non (no). The Name-of-the-Father is simultaneously the father’s “No.” This linguistic play is not rhetorical ornament but theoretical condensation. The father’s name is the prohibition that bars incestuous desire and institutes law.

In Freudian terms, the father intervenes in the child’s libidinal attachment to the mother by forbidding its consummation. Lacan reformulates this intervention as a symbolic negation. The paternal “No” interrupts the dyadic relation between mother and child and introduces a third term.

This third term is decisive. Without it, the child remains caught in what Lacan calls the imaginary relation—an undifferentiated duality structured by mirroring and rivalry. The father’s “No” establishes a limit and thereby opens the space of desire. Prohibition does not annihilate desire; it structures it.

Lacan emphasizes that this prohibition is not merely empirical. It does not depend on the actual behavior of the father. Even an absent or weak father can fulfill the paternal function, provided that the signifier of the Name-of-the-Father is operative in the symbolic universe of the child. Conversely, a powerful empirical father may fail to transmit this function.

Thus, the Name-of-the-Father must be understood as a structural position rather than a biographical fact.

3. Entry into the Symbolic Order

The intervention of the Name-of-the-Father enables the child’s entry into the Symbolic Order. This order is the domain of language, law, and social exchange. It precedes the individual subject and structures the field into which the subject is born.

Lacan’s thesis that “the unconscious is structured like a language”[7] implies that subjectivity itself is an effect of signifiers. The subject is represented by one signifier for another signifier. In matheme form, this can be written as:

[math]\displaystyle{ S \rightarrow S' }[/math]

The subject ($S$) is not a self-transparent entity but an effect of differential relations among signifiers ($S'$). The Name-of-the-Father is the signifier that anchors this chain.

In the absence of such an anchoring signifier, meaning “slides.” Lacan introduces the notion of the point de capiton (quilting point) to designate the signifier that fixes the relation between signifier and signified.[8] The Name-of-the-Father functions as such a quilting point at the level of law and desire. It stabilizes the symbolic field by instituting prohibition and lineage.

The child’s fundamental question—“What does the mother want?”—is answered not by direct knowledge but by the mediation of the paternal signifier. The father names and thereby limits the mother’s desire. The child is no longer the exclusive object of that desire but is repositioned within a broader symbolic network.

4. The Father and the Phallus

In Lacan’s early teaching, the Name-of-the-Father is closely linked to the Phallus as signifier. The phallus is not the anatomical organ but the signifier of lack and desire. It designates what is at stake in the mother’s desire and what the child imagines it must be to satisfy her.

The paternal function intervenes by signifying that the mother’s desire is oriented elsewhere—toward the law, toward the father, toward the symbolic order. This displacement prevents the child from occupying the position of being the phallus for the mother.

In this sense, the Name-of-the-Father institutes symbolic castration. Castration, for Lacan, is not an empirical threat but the structural recognition that no subject can fully embody the object of the Other’s desire. The paternal signifier inscribes this impossibility.

The effect is the constitution of the divided subject ($\bar{S}$), marked by lack:

[math]\displaystyle{ \bar{S} }[/math]

The barred subject is the subject of the unconscious, split between conscious identification and unconscious desire. The Name-of-the-Father is the signifier that introduces this division by separating the child from the immediacy of maternal jouissance.

III. The Name-of-the-Father as Fundamental Signifier

By the mid-1950s, in the seminar devoted to psychosis (1955–1956), Lacan elevates the Name-of-the-Father to the status of a fully formalized technical term. The expression becomes capitalized and hyphenated—Nom-du-Père—marking its transformation from a descriptive phrase into a structural concept. It is no longer merely the father’s name in a sociological sense but a privileged signifier whose inscription determines the consistency of the symbolic order.

1. Seminar III and the Technical Elevation of the Concept

In The Seminar, Book III: The Psychoses, Lacan identifies the Name-of-the-Father as the decisive signifier whose absence characterizes psychosis.[2] There, he distinguishes repression (Verdrängung) from foreclosure (forclusion), arguing that neurosis and psychosis differ not in degree but in structure. The Name-of-the-Father, when foreclosed, leaves a “hole” in the symbolic order.

Lacan states:

“For psychosis to be triggered, it is necessary that the Name-of-the-Father, verworfen, foreclosed, that is to say, never having come to the place of the Other, be called into symbolic opposition to the subject.”[9]

This passage signals the conceptual consolidation of the Name-of-the-Father. It is no longer simply the signifier of prohibition; it is the signifier that must occupy a determinate place in the Other—the locus of language and law. If it is “never having come to the place of the Other,” the symbolic structure lacks a stabilizing term.

The capitalization of the concept corresponds to its formal elevation. It becomes what Lacan elsewhere calls a “fundamental signifier” (signifiant fondamental)—a term whose function is not relative but structural.

2. The Master Signifier (S1) and the Anchoring of Meaning

In Lacan’s theory of discourse, later elaborated in the late 1960s, the master signifier is designated as $S_1$. Although the formal theory of discourse comes after Seminar III, the Name-of-the-Father already anticipates the function of $S_1$: it is the signifier that anchors the chain of signifiers ($S_2$) and halts the otherwise indefinite sliding of meaning.

The relation may be schematized as:

[math]\displaystyle{ S_1 \rightarrow S_2 }[/math]

Here, $S_1$ represents the master signifier, which commands or organizes the field of knowledge ($S_2$). The Name-of-the-Father functions as such a master signifier insofar as it guarantees the symbolic order’s coherence. It provides what Lacan calls a point de capiton—a quilting point that fixes signification.[8]

Without such anchoring, the symbolic chain risks fragmentation. Meaning becomes unstable, and the subject’s position within discourse is threatened. The Name-of-the-Father thus secures not only prohibition but also semantic consistency.

It is in this sense that Lacan links the Name-of-the-Father to nomination. To name is to assign a place within the symbolic network. The paternal name inscribes the subject within lineage, kinship, and law. Through the paternal signifier, the subject acquires a position in a genealogical and juridical structure that precedes individual existence.

3. The Name-of-the-Father and Lineage

The importance of naming is not incidental. In many cultures, the paternal surname marks filiation and inheritance. Lacan radicalizes this observation: the paternal name is the symbolic marker of entry into the social order. It designates the subject as belonging to a chain of generations and subjects the individual to a preexisting system of differences.

This inscription has several structural consequences:

  • It situates the subject within a field of symbolic relations (kinship, law, property).
  • It establishes prohibition as impersonal rather than arbitrary.
  • It mediates desire through the law.

Freud had already observed that the father is internalized as the superego.[3] Lacan translates this internalization into structural terms: the Name-of-the-Father is the signifier that institutes the law in the Other and, through that, in the subject.

Thus, the paternal function is not reducible to authority in the sociological sense. It is the structural condition for the possibility of authority. Even when the empirical father is weak or absent, the paternal function may still operate if the symbolic network provides a signifier capable of performing this anchoring role.

4. Symbolic Consistency and the Place of the Other

Central to Lacan’s formalization is the concept of the Other (Autre). The Other is not another person but the locus of language—the place where signifiers reside and from which speech derives its authority. The Name-of-the-Father must occupy a place in the Other.

The foreclosure of the Name-of-the-Father means that this signifier is not inscribed in the Other. As Lacan emphasizes in Seminar III, what is foreclosed from the symbolic returns in the Real.[2] The return in the Real is not metaphorical; it designates phenomena such as hallucinations or delusional constructions that emerge to compensate for the missing signifier.

Thus, the Name-of-the-Father guarantees what might be called symbolic consistency. When it is present (even if repressed), the symbolic order maintains its coherence. When it is absent through foreclosure, the subject must confront a destabilized symbolic universe.

This structural thesis differentiates Lacan from purely developmental interpretations of psychosis. The decisive issue is not trauma or deficiency in upbringing but the inscription—or non-inscription—of a fundamental signifier.


5. Transition to the Paternal Metaphor

The elevation of the Name-of-the-Father to the status of fundamental signifier prepares Lacan’s next conceptual move: the formalization of the paternal metaphor. The paternal metaphor specifies the precise mechanism by which the Name-of-the-Father intervenes in the child’s relation to the mother’s desire.

If the Name-of-the-Father is $S_1$, the paternal metaphor will describe how this signifier substitutes for another signifier—the signifier of the Mother’s Desire—producing a new signification: the Phallus as signifier of lack.

This substitution can be schematized in Lacanian notation as:

[math]\displaystyle{ \frac{\text{Name-of-the-Father}}{\text{Desire of the Mother}} \;\longrightarrow\; \text{Phallus} }[/math]

The metaphor is not rhetorical but structural. It indicates that one signifier replaces another in the symbolic chain, thereby generating a new configuration of desire. The next section examines this operation in detail, showing how the paternal metaphor institutes symbolic castration and completes the subject’s entry into the Symbolic Order.

IV. The Paternal Metaphor

The theory of the paternal metaphor represents one of Lacan’s most rigorous formalizations of the Name-of-the-Father. While Seminar III establishes the Name-of-the-Father as a fundamental signifier whose foreclosure determines psychosis, the doctrine of the paternal metaphor explains the precise symbolic operation through which this signifier structures desire in the neurotic subject.

The paternal metaphor is elaborated most explicitly in Lacan’s 1957–1958 seminar, later published as The Seminar of Jacques Lacan, Book V: The Formations of the Unconscious.[10] There, Lacan articulates the metaphor as a substitution of signifiers that transforms the child’s relation to the mother’s desire.

1. Metaphor as Signifying Substitution

Lacan’s general theory of metaphor, drawing on Roman Jakobson, defines metaphor as the substitution of one signifier for another, producing a new signification. In “The Instance of the Letter in the Unconscious,” he provides a formal schema of metaphor as follows:

[math]\displaystyle{ \frac{S'}{S} \;\longrightarrow\; S(+)s }[/math]

In this schema, one signifier ($S'$) substitutes for another ($S$), generating a new signified effect ($s$).[11]

The paternal metaphor is a specific instance of this general structure. It concerns the substitution of the Name-of-the-Father for the signifier of the mother’s desire.

Lacan formulates the paternal metaphor in matheme form as:

[math]\displaystyle{ \frac{\text{Name-of-the-Father}}{\text{Desire of the Mother}} \;\longrightarrow\; \text{Phallus} }[/math]

This formula condenses the Oedipal process into a signifying operation. The Name-of-the-Father replaces (or metaphorizes) the signifier of the mother’s desire, thereby producing a new signification: the Phallus as the signifier of desire structured by lack.


2. The Enigma of the Mother’s Desire

Prior to the intervention of the paternal metaphor, the child confronts the mother’s desire as an enigma. The child experiences itself as potentially the object of that desire, yet cannot decipher its meaning. The fundamental question—“What does she want?”—is constitutive of early subjectivity.

In Lacanian terms, the mother’s desire is experienced as excessive and opaque. It threatens to engulf the child within an undifferentiated relation. The child may attempt to position itself as the object that satisfies the mother’s desire—that is, as the Phallus.

However, this imaginary solution is unstable. Without a third term, the dyadic relation between mother and child remains closed upon itself. The paternal metaphor introduces that third term, reconfiguring the field.

3. Substitution and the Production of the Phallus

The intervention of the Name-of-the-Father substitutes the signifier of the mother’s desire with a signifier of law. This substitution generates a new meaning: the Phallus, not as anatomical organ but as the signifier of lack.

Lacan is explicit that the Phallus is a signifier:

“The phallus is a signifier, a signifier whose function, in the intra-subjective economy of analysis, lifts the veil perhaps from that which it designates as a whole.”[12]

The paternal metaphor produces the Phallus as that which signifies what is lacking in the Other. The child learns that the mother herself is subject to the law; her desire is not absolute but mediated by the Name-of-the-Father.

This realization institutes symbolic castration. The child must relinquish the fantasy of being the exclusive object of the mother’s desire. Castration is thus the recognition that no subject can fully embody the Phallus.

The effect is the constitution of the divided subject ($\bar{S}$) in relation to the barred Other ($\bar{A}$). The Other itself is marked by lack:

[math]\displaystyle{ \bar{A} }[/math]

The paternal metaphor reveals that the Other—the locus of language and law—is not complete. The Name-of-the-Father introduces law, but it also signals that the law itself does not eliminate lack. Rather, it structures it.

4. Oedipal Resolution and Symbolic Castration

The paternal metaphor completes what Freud described as the dissolution of the Oedipus complex.[4] In Lacanian terms, the Oedipus complex is not merely resolved through repression but transformed through signification.

The child’s desire is redirected. Instead of seeking immediate satisfaction in the maternal body, desire becomes mediated by the symbolic order. It is deferred, displaced, and articulated through language.

Symbolic castration establishes several structural conditions:

  • The subject is separated from the maternal body.
  • Desire is recognized as structured by lack.
  • The law becomes internalized as a signifying function.
  • The subject gains access to symbolic identification.

The paternal metaphor therefore does not repress desire; it organizes it. It converts an immediate, imaginary attachment into a mediated, symbolic relation.

5. Failure of the Paternal Metaphor

The clinical importance of the paternal metaphor becomes evident when it fails. If the Name-of-the-Father does not substitute for the signifier of the mother’s desire, the metaphor does not take place. The symbolic articulation of castration is not achieved.

In such cases, the subject may remain fixed in an imaginary relation to the mother’s desire. The absence of substitution corresponds to the foreclosure of the Name-of-the-Father, elaborated in Seminar III.[2]

Without the paternal metaphor:

  • The Phallus is not instituted as signifier of lack.
  • The Other is not barred.
  • Desire remains unmediated by symbolic law.

This structural failure lays the groundwork for psychosis. When the Name-of-the-Father is foreclosed, it cannot return in the symbolic through repression. Instead, it returns in the Real—in hallucinations, delusions, and disturbances of meaning.

Thus, the paternal metaphor occupies a pivotal position in Lacan’s theory. It specifies the mechanism by which the Name-of-the-Father institutes symbolic castration and stabilizes the subject’s relation to desire. The next section examines in detail the consequences of foreclosure and the structure of psychosis that results from the non-inscription of the Name-of-the-Father.

V. Foreclosure and Psychosis

The full clinical significance of the Name-of-the-Father emerges in Lacan’s theory of psychosis. If the paternal metaphor describes the successful substitution that institutes symbolic castration in neurosis, foreclosure (forclusion) designates the structural failure of this operation. In psychosis, the Name-of-the-Father is not repressed but excluded from the symbolic order altogether.

Lacan introduces foreclosure as a distinct mechanism in The Seminar, Book III: The Psychoses.[2] Drawing on Freud’s use of the term Verwerfung (rejection) in his analysis of psychosis, Lacan distinguishes foreclosure from repression (Verdrängung). Repression presupposes that a signifier has been inscribed in the symbolic order and subsequently pushed into the unconscious. Foreclosure, by contrast, refers to the non-inscription of a signifier in the first place.

1. Foreclosure Defined

In Seminar III, Lacan articulates the structural stakes of foreclosure:

“What is at issue in psychosis is a foreclosure of the Name-of-the-Father in the place of the Other.”[13]

The phrase “in the place of the Other” is decisive. The Other (Autre) is the locus of language, law, and signification. For the symbolic order to function coherently, the Name-of-the-Father must occupy a place within it. When this signifier is foreclosed, there is a structural hole in the symbolic.

Lacan famously summarizes the mechanism of foreclosure with the formula: what is foreclosed from the symbolic returns in the Real.[2] This return is not metaphorical but clinical. The missing signifier reappears not in disguised, repressed form but in intrusive phenomena—hallucinations, delusional constructions, and disruptions of meaning.

2. The Structural Distinction: Neurosis, Psychosis, Perversion

The Name-of-the-Father thus becomes the decisive criterion for structural diagnosis. Lacan differentiates three major structures according to the fate of the paternal signifier:

  • Neurosis: The Name-of-the-Father is inscribed but repressed. The law structures desire, and symptoms arise as compromise formations.
  • Psychosis: The Name-of-the-Father is foreclosed. The symbolic order lacks a stabilizing signifier.
  • Perversion: The Name-of-the-Father is disavowed. The law is staged or manipulated rather than fully internalized.

In neurosis, repression allows the signifier to return in symbolic formations such as dreams, slips, and symptoms. In psychosis, foreclosure prevents such symbolic return. Instead, the signifier erupts in the Real.


3. The Case of Schreber

Lacan’s principal clinical illustration is Freud’s analysis of Daniel Paul Schreber, a German jurist who developed a complex paranoid psychosis. Freud’s study, “Psycho-Analytic Notes on an Autobiographical Account of a Case of Paranoia (Dementia Paranoides)” (1911), provides the empirical basis for Lacan’s reinterpretation.[14]

Freud emphasizes the centrality of paternal figures in Schreber’s delusions. Schreber experienced elaborate hallucinations involving divine rays, transformations of his body, and a mission to redeem the world. Freud interprets these phenomena as expressions of repressed homosexual desire and paternal conflict.[14]

Lacan, however, shifts the emphasis. For him, the Schreber case demonstrates the foreclosure of the Name-of-the-Father. The delusional system is not merely a regression but an attempt to repair the symbolic order. In Seminar III, Lacan argues that Schreber’s construction of God as an omnipotent figure represents a substitute signifier for the foreclosed paternal function.[2]

When the Name-of-the-Father is absent, the subject may attempt to compensate by constructing a new master signifier. Delusion becomes a metaphorical effort to stabilize meaning. It is not a meaningless collapse but a creative, though precarious, reorganization of the symbolic.

4. Return in the Real

The foreclosure of the Name-of-the-Father produces distinctive clinical phenomena. Because the signifier was never inscribed, it cannot return through repression. Instead, it reappears in the Real as an intrusive element.

Lacan describes auditory hallucinations as paradigmatic of this return. Voices are experienced as emanating from the Other, as if language itself were speaking directly. The subject confronts a breakdown in the separation between signifier and signified. Meaning is no longer stabilized by a quilting point.

This destabilization manifests as:

  • Hallucinations (voices, visions).
  • Delusional certainty.
  • Disruption of symbolic mediation.
  • Disturbance in identity and bodily integrity.

The Name-of-the-Father ordinarily anchors the symbolic field and bars the Other. In its absence, the Other may appear as unbarred—complete, invasive, and omnipotent. The psychotic subject may experience the Other as persecutory or overwhelming.

5. The Triggering of Psychosis

Foreclosure does not always result in immediate psychotic breakdown. Lacan emphasizes that psychosis is often “triggered” when a signifier corresponding to the Name-of-the-Father is called upon in the symbolic order.[9] For example, moments of social transition—marriage, fatherhood, professional elevation—may require the subject to assume a paternal position symbolically.

If the Name-of-the-Father has been foreclosed, the subject cannot respond symbolically to this demand. The resulting destabilization may precipitate a psychotic episode.

Thus, foreclosure is structural, but its effects may remain latent until a symbolic demand activates the missing signifier.

6. Delusion as Metaphor

Lacan provocatively suggests that delusion can function as a metaphor—an attempt to restore symbolic coherence in the absence of the paternal metaphor. In Schreber’s case, the elaborate cosmology of divine rays and transformation represents a compensatory construction.

Delusion, then, is not pure chaos but a structured response to a structural lack. It testifies to the subject’s effort to patch the hole in the symbolic order.

This perspective marks a decisive departure from deficit models of psychosis. Rather than attributing psychosis to ego weakness or regression, Lacan situates it within the logic of signifiers. The foreclosure of the Name-of-the-Father produces a gap in the symbolic, and psychotic phenomena emerge as attempts—however unstable—to fill that gap.

VI. Later Lacan: Pluralization and the Sinthome

By the late 1960s and 1970s, Lacan’s teaching undergoes a significant transformation. While the Name-of-the-Father had previously functioned as the fundamental signifier guaranteeing the consistency of the Symbolic Order, Lacan begins to question the universality and singularity of this function. The concept is progressively pluralized—Names-of-the-Father (Noms-du-Père)—and rearticulated within the framework of knot theory and the topology of the Real, Symbolic, and Imaginary.

This shift does not abandon the paternal function but relativizes it. The Name-of-the-Father becomes one possible mode of knotting the registers rather than their necessary and universal anchor.

1. From the Name-of-the-Father to the Names-of-the-Father

As early as his interrupted 1963 seminar entitled Les Noms-du-Père, Lacan signals a conceptual expansion. The pluralization suggests that the paternal function cannot be reduced to a single, transcendent signifier. Instead, multiple signifiers may perform analogous structuring roles.

The earlier model posited the Name-of-the-Father as the master signifier ($S_1$) anchoring the symbolic chain. In the later teaching, Lacan increasingly emphasizes the contingency of such anchoring. The symbolic order is no longer conceived as a stable structure guaranteed by a singular paternal metaphor; rather, it appears as a precarious configuration requiring continual knotting.

This development reflects both theoretical and historical considerations. Lacan remarks on the “decline of the paternal imago” in modernity, suggesting that traditional figures of authority no longer provide stable guarantees.[15] The paternal function cannot simply be assumed; it must be constructed.

2. The Borromean Knot

In the 1970s, Lacan turns to topology to formalize the relations among the Real, the Symbolic, and the Imaginary. The privileged figure becomes the Borromean knot: three interlinked rings such that if one is cut, the others fall apart.

In The Seminar, Book XXIII: The Sinthome (1975–1976), Lacan uses the Borromean knot to conceptualize psychic structure.[16] The Name-of-the-Father, previously conceived as the guarantor of symbolic consistency, is now understood as one possible way of knotting the three registers together.

The registers may be schematized as:

[math]\displaystyle{ R \quad S \quad I }[/math]

where:

  • $R$ = Real
  • $S$ = Symbolic
  • $I$ = Imaginary

In earlier teaching, the Name-of-the-Father functioned as the quilting point within the Symbolic. In the later topology, what matters is the consistency of the knot linking $R$, $S$, and $I$. The paternal function is no longer the only possible stabilizer.


3. The Sinthome as Fourth Ring

In Seminar XXIII, Lacan introduces the concept of the sinthome—a neologism distinguishing it from the traditional “symptom.” The sinthome functions as a fourth ring that stabilizes the Borromean knot when the three registers do not hold together sufficiently on their own.[16]

The structure may be represented as:

[math]\displaystyle{ R \;\;\leftrightarrow\;\; S \;\;\leftrightarrow\;\; I \;\;\text{(+ sinthome)} }[/math]

The sinthome is a singular invention by which a subject knots together the Real, Symbolic, and Imaginary. It is not reducible to the Name-of-the-Father. Rather, it may substitute for it.

Lacan’s reading of James Joyce in Seminar XXIII illustrates this point. Joyce’s writing functions as a sinthome—a unique construction that stabilizes his psychic structure independently of a traditional paternal metaphor.[16]

This example signals a decisive theoretical move: the paternal function is no longer universally normative. The subject may invent alternative modes of stabilization.

4. Relativizing the Paternal Metaphor

The pluralization into Names-of-the-Father suggests that the paternal function is not intrinsically tied to a male parent or a singular signifier. Any signifier capable of instituting separation and structuring desire may fulfill an analogous role.

The earlier model emphasized the substitution:

[math]\displaystyle{ \frac{\text{Name-of-the-Father}}{\text{Desire of the Mother}} \;\longrightarrow\; \text{Phallus} }[/math]

In the later teaching, this substitution remains conceptually important, but it is no longer regarded as the sole mechanism of psychic stabilization. The emphasis shifts from universal structure to singular solution.

This transformation does not negate the structural distinction between neurosis and psychosis. Rather, it complicates it. The paternal function may be replaced or supplemented by other knotting mechanisms, leading to new clinical configurations.

5. From Law to Jouissance

Another shift in the later teaching concerns the increasing centrality of jouissance. Whereas the earlier Lacan foregrounded law and prohibition, the later Lacan examines how the subject negotiates enjoyment beyond the pleasure principle.

The Name-of-the-Father had functioned as the signifier of law, limiting jouissance through symbolic castration. In the later framework, the sinthome becomes the subject’s way of organizing jouissance. The focus moves from prohibition to invention.

This shift reflects Lacan’s growing skepticism about the universality of the paternal metaphor. If modernity is characterized by the decline of traditional symbolic authorities, then subjects must construct new forms of consistency.

VII. Post-Lacanian Developments

The transformation of the Name-of-the-Father in Lacan’s later teaching—particularly its pluralization and its relativization within the topology of the Borromean knot—has generated extensive elaboration among post-Lacanian theorists. The question shifts from whether the paternal function is structurally necessary to how it operates, mutates, or declines within contemporary symbolic configurations.

Three major lines of development can be distinguished: (1) Jacques-Alain Miller’s reformulation of the father as symptom; (2) Éric Laurent’s analysis of “ordinary psychosis” and the weakening of symbolic efficiency; and (3) Slavoj Žižek’s ideological reading of the decline of symbolic authority.

1. Jacques-Alain Miller: The Father as Symptom

Jacques-Alain Miller, editor of Lacan’s seminars and a central figure in contemporary Lacanian psychoanalysis, has emphasized that Lacan’s later work displaces the Name-of-the-Father from its status as universal guarantor. In his reading, the paternal function becomes one solution among others—a contingent construction rather than a transcendental necessity.

In Seminar XXIII, Lacan’s introduction of the sinthome suggests that the subject may stabilize the relation among the Real, Symbolic, and Imaginary through a singular invention.[16] Miller draws out the implication: the father is no longer the unique master signifier but may function as a symptom—an idiosyncratic formation that knots the registers for a given subject.

This reframing has several consequences:

  • The paternal function is de-universalized.
  • Authority is no longer assumed to be structurally guaranteed.
  • Clinical practice shifts from interpreting repression to supporting constructions that stabilize jouissance.

Whereas the early Lacan emphasized the necessity of symbolic castration via the Name-of-the-Father, Miller underscores the contemporary context in which such a signifier may be weakened or pluralized. The father becomes one possible “operator” among others.

This perspective does not abolish structural diagnosis. Rather, it refines it: what matters is not whether the subject conforms to a traditional Oedipal configuration, but how their psychic structure achieves consistency.

2. Éric Laurent: Ordinary Psychosis and the Collapse of Symbolic Efficiency

Éric Laurent has extended Lacan’s insights into what he terms “ordinary psychosis.” This concept describes subjects who do not present with overt psychotic breakdowns yet exhibit structural fragility due to deficiencies in symbolic anchoring.

The decline of strong master signifiers in late modernity—religious authority, patriarchal law, stable social hierarchies—has, according to Laurent, produced a context in which the Name-of-the-Father no longer operates with unquestioned symbolic efficacy. The result is not necessarily classical psychosis but subtler forms of instability.

Laurent’s thesis implies:

  • A weakening of the quilting function of $S_1$.
  • Increased reliance on imaginary identifications.
  • Symptoms centered on affect regulation and bodily disturbance rather than symbolic conflict.

In classical neurosis, repression organizes desire within a stable symbolic framework. In ordinary psychosis, symbolic anchoring may be insufficient, yet not absent in the radical sense of foreclosure. The clinic thus shifts from interpreting repressed meaning to supporting constructions that prevent destabilization.

This development corresponds to Lacan’s later emphasis on singular knotting. Where the Name-of-the-Father once functioned as a universal stabilizer, contemporary subjects may rely on fragile or improvised solutions.


VIII. Cultural and Social Transformations

The conceptual evolution of the Name-of-the-Father cannot be separated from broader transformations in social organization, family structure, and authority. While Lacan’s early teaching situates the paternal function at the structural core of subject formation, later developments—both within psychoanalysis and in cultural theory—have questioned whether this function must be tied to traditional patriarchy or even to a male parent at all.

The distinction between the symbolic function and the empirical father becomes especially crucial in this context.

1. The Decline of Patriarchal Authority

Lacan himself remarks upon what he calls the “decline of the paternal imago” in modern society.[15] This observation does not amount to nostalgia for patriarchal order but signals a shift in the symbolic coordinates that structure subjectivity.

In premodern societies, paternal authority was often embedded in religious, legal, and economic institutions. The father represented a stable point of reference within a hierarchical structure. In modernity, however, processes such as secularization, democratization, and the transformation of family forms have destabilized these traditional guarantees.

From a Lacanian perspective, the crucial question is not whether fathers are more or less authoritative in a sociological sense, but whether there remain signifiers capable of performing the function of symbolic anchoring. The Name-of-the-Father, in its structural sense, is not reducible to patriarchy; it designates the signifier that institutes separation and law.

Misreadings that equate Lacan’s concept with the defense of patriarchal dominance overlook this formal dimension. The paternal function describes a logical operation—the introduction of a third term that interrupts imaginary duality—not a sociopolitical endorsement of male authority.

2. Non-Traditional Family Structures

Contemporary psychoanalytic debate has addressed whether the paternal function can be fulfilled in non-traditional family configurations. Developments such as single-parent households, same-sex parenting, assisted reproduction, and blended families challenge simplistic identifications of the Name-of-the-Father with a biological male parent.

From a strictly Lacanian standpoint, what matters is not the gender or biological status of the caregiver but whether the function of symbolic separation is achieved. The paternal metaphor requires:

  • A signifier that limits the mother’s desire.
  • A third term that introduces law.
  • The institution of symbolic castration.

There is nothing in Lacan’s formalization that restricts this function to a male body. The Name-of-the-Father is a position in the symbolic order, not a natural role. Any signifier capable of introducing the child into a system of law and difference may perform an analogous function.

This distinction has allowed many Lacanian theorists to argue that queer family structures do not inherently undermine symbolic formation. The decisive factor is whether a structuring signifier operates—not whether it corresponds to a traditional paternal figure.


3. Gender and the Question of Universality

Engagements between Lacanian theory and gender studies have often centered on the phallus and the paternal metaphor. Critics have accused Lacanian psychoanalysis of phallocentrism, arguing that its emphasis on the Phallus and the Name-of-the-Father privileges masculine authority.

However, Lacan repeatedly insists that the Phallus is a signifier, not an organ.[12] Its function is to mark lack, not to glorify anatomical masculinity. Likewise, the Name-of-the-Father designates a symbolic operation rather than a biological father.

The universality at stake in Lacan’s theory is structural, not sociological. The question is whether every subject must encounter a signifier that institutes prohibition and separation. Even critics who challenge Lacan’s formulations often retain the insight that subjectivity requires differentiation from primary attachment.

The pluralization into Names-of-the-Father further complicates the debate. If multiple signifiers can perform the paternal function, then symbolic authority becomes historically variable rather than fixed.

4. Institutions and the Paternal Function

Beyond the family, institutions may serve as bearers of the paternal function. Schools, religious organizations, legal systems, and linguistic communities all transmit symbolic law. The Name-of-the-Father may thus be embodied in institutional structures rather than solely in familial relations.

This broader view aligns with Freud’s thesis in Totem and Taboo that the father becomes more powerful after death as the symbolic foundation of law.[5] Lacan translates this into structural terms: the paternal function exceeds the individual father and is embedded in the symbolic network.

In contemporary societies, where institutional authority may be fragmented, the paternal function may likewise become unstable. The weakening of shared master signifiers can lead to increased reliance on imaginary identifications or to the proliferation of competing authorities.


IX. Comparative and Critical Perspectives

The Name-of-the-Father has been one of the most debated concepts in Freudian–Lacanian psychoanalysis. While it occupies a central structural position within Lacan’s early teaching, it has also been the object of sustained critique from feminist theory, anti-Oedipal philosophy, and contemporary psychoanalytic revision. These critiques do not merely reject the concept but force clarification of its logical status, its relation to patriarchy, and its clinical utility.

1. Feminist Critiques and the Question of Phallocentrism

One of the most persistent criticisms of Lacan concerns the apparent centrality of the Phallus and the Name-of-the-Father. Feminist theorists have argued that Lacan’s formalization risks reinscribing symbolic structures of male dominance under the guise of structural necessity.

The critique often targets the claim that the Phallus is the privileged signifier of desire and that the Name-of-the-Father anchors the symbolic order. If taken sociologically, this could seem to elevate masculine authority to a transcendental position.

However, Lacan explicitly distinguishes the Phallus as signifier from the anatomical organ:

“The phallus is a signifier, a signifier whose function, in the intra-subjective economy of analysis, lifts the veil perhaps from that which it designates as a whole.”[12]

From a structural standpoint, the Phallus marks lack rather than masculine possession. Likewise, the Name-of-the-Father describes a signifying operation that institutes separation and prohibition. The question, then, becomes whether the structural necessity of separation entails the symbolic centrality of a paternal signifier.

Some feminist Lacanians have responded by emphasizing that the paternal function is not inherently tied to male embodiment. The structural introduction of a third term need not reproduce patriarchal hierarchy. Instead, it describes the logical requirement for mediation between desire and law.

The debate thus turns on whether Lacan’s mathemes describe universal psychic structures or historically contingent symbolic arrangements.

2. Deleuze and Guattari: Anti-Oedipus

A more radical critique appears in the work of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari. In Anti-Oedipus (1972), they reject the Oedipal model as reductive and ideological, arguing that psychoanalysis overcodes the multiplicity of desire within a familial triangle.[17]

For Deleuze and Guattari:

  • Desire is productive rather than lack-based.
  • The Oedipus complex imposes a familial schema onto broader social flows.
  • The paternal prohibition constrains rather than structures desire.

From their perspective, the Name-of-the-Father represents the theoretical crystallization of this overcoding. The Oedipal triangle—father, mother, child—reduces the multiplicity of social relations to a familial drama.

Lacan’s defenders have responded that this critique misreads the structural dimension of the paternal metaphor. The Name-of-the-Father does not assert that desire originates in the family; rather, it formalizes the logical necessity of mediation and difference. The paternal function is not a sociological claim about family life but a structural account of how signifiers organize desire.

Nevertheless, Deleuze and Guattari’s challenge has had enduring influence, particularly in fields such as cultural theory and political philosophy, where the suspicion of Oedipal reduction remains strong.

3. Structural Diagnosis Revisited

Within psychoanalysis itself, the theory of foreclosure has been subject to ongoing debate. Lacan’s thesis in Seminar III that psychosis results from the foreclosure of the Name-of-the-Father[2] established a clear structural distinction between neurosis and psychosis. Yet contemporary clinicians have questioned how rigidly this distinction should be applied.

The emergence of concepts such as “ordinary psychosis” reflects the difficulty of maintaining sharp structural boundaries in contemporary clinical practice. Subjects may exhibit fragilities in symbolic anchoring without presenting classical psychotic phenomena.

This raises the question: Is the Name-of-the-Father a binary criterion (inscribed or foreclosed), or can its function vary in degree? Lacan’s later pluralization into Names-of-the-Father and his emphasis on singular knotting suggest a more flexible approach.

The earlier model:

[math]\displaystyle{ \text{Inscription} \;\;\Rightarrow\;\; \text{Neurosis} }[/math] [math]\displaystyle{ \text{Foreclosure} \;\;\Rightarrow\;\; \text{Psychosis} }[/math]

appears increasingly supplemented by consideration of how subjects construct compensatory mechanisms (e.g., the sinthome).

4. Historicization and Universality

A further critical question concerns historicity. If the Name-of-the-Father functions as the master signifier of law, what happens when symbolic authority undergoes transformation? Can a structural concept remain valid amid social change?

Joan Copjec argues that Lacan’s theory should not be reduced to a historical description of patriarchy.[18] The incest prohibition and the differentiation of desire are structural conditions, not contingent customs. From this standpoint, the paternal function remains necessary even if its empirical embodiments shift.

Opposing views emphasize that symbolic forms evolve. The decline of traditional fatherhood, the pluralization of family structures, and the rise of new modes of identification suggest that the paternal metaphor may not occupy the same organizing role it once did.

Lacan’s own late teaching complicates the issue. By pluralizing the Name-of-the-Father and introducing the sinthome as a singular solution, he acknowledges historical variability while retaining structural logic. The universal requirement is not a specific paternal figure but a mechanism that knots the Real, Symbolic, and Imaginary.

X. Conclusion

The concept of the Name-of-the-Father traces a decisive trajectory within Freudian–Lacanian psychoanalysis: from Freud’s mythic and metapsychological account of paternal authority to Lacan’s structural formalization of the father as a signifier, and finally to the pluralized and topological reinterpretations of Lacan’s later teaching.

In Freud’s work, the father emerges as the agent of prohibition, the source of identification, and the origin of law. In Totem and Taboo, the primal father’s murder founds social order through the retroactive institution of the incest taboo.[5] In The Ego and the Id, the internalization of paternal authority gives rise to the superego and moral conscience.[3] Although Freud does not conceptualize the father in linguistic terms, he establishes the structural link between prohibition, guilt, and the formation of civilization.


Lacan’s intervention consists in translating these Freudian insights into the logic of the signifier. The Name-of-the-Father becomes:

  • The signifier of the law within the Symbolic Order.
  • The operator of the Oedipus complex.
  • The anchoring master signifier ($S_1$).
  • The condition for the metaphorical substitution that institutes the Phallus as signifier of lack.

Through the paternal metaphor,

[math]\displaystyle{ \frac{\text{Name-of-the-Father}}{\text{Desire of the Mother}} \;\longrightarrow\; \text{Phallus} }[/math]

the child’s relation to the mother’s desire is restructured. The dyadic imaginary bond is interrupted by a third term, introducing symbolic castration and dividing the subject:

[math]\displaystyle{ \bar{S} }[/math]

This operation makes possible entry into language, deferred desire, and symbolic identification.

Clinically, the Name-of-the-Father becomes the cornerstone of structural diagnosis. In The Seminar, Book III, Lacan identifies foreclosure of the Name-of-the-Father as the defining mechanism of psychosis.[2] The absence of this fundamental signifier produces a hole in the symbolic order, with consequences that manifest as hallucinations, delusions, and disturbances in meaning. The return of what is foreclosed “in the Real” provides a structural explanation for psychotic phenomena that departs from developmental or deficit models.

Yet Lacan’s later teaching complicates this architecture. The pluralization into Names-of-the-Father and the introduction of the sinthome in The Seminar, Book XXIII[16] relativize the paternal function. The Name-of-the-Father is no longer conceived as the singular and universal guarantor of symbolic order. Instead, it becomes one possible way of knotting together the Real, Symbolic, and Imaginary.

This shift reflects both theoretical development and historical transformation. The “decline of the paternal imago”[15] in modernity suggests that traditional figures of authority no longer provide stable guarantees. Subjects may rely on alternative signifiers or singular constructions to stabilize jouissance. The structural necessity of separation and mediation remains, but its embodiment becomes historically variable.

Contemporary debates—feminist critiques, Deleuzian anti-Oedipal philosophy, and post-Lacanian clinical theory—have further clarified the stakes of the concept. The Name-of-the-Father must be distinguished from empirical patriarchy; it designates a logical operation rather than a sociopolitical endorsement. At the same time, its historical articulation is not immune to transformation.

In its most general formulation, the Name-of-the-Father names the signifier that institutes separation, prohibition, and the mediation of desire. It marks the passage from imaginary immediacy to symbolic law. Whether conceived as a master signifier, a quilting point, or one among several possible knotting functions, it remains central to the Freudian–Lacanian account of subject formation.

The enduring significance of the Name-of-the-Father lies in its capacity to articulate the intersection of language, law, and desire. It provides a formal schema for understanding how subjects are inscribed within symbolic structures and how those structures may fail, mutate, or be reinvented. As psychoanalysis continues to confront changing familial, cultural, and ideological landscapes, the concept retains both theoretical rigor and critical relevance.

See Also

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Jacques Lacan, Écrits: A Selection, trans. Alan Sheridan (New York: W. W. Norton, 1977), 67.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7 2.8 Jacques Lacan, The Seminar of Jacques Lacan, Book III: The Psychoses, 1955–1956, trans. Russell Grigg (New York: W. W. Norton, 1993).
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 Sigmund Freud, The Ego and the Id (1923), in The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, vol. 19, trans. James Strachey (London: Hogarth Press, 1961), 34.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Sigmund Freud, “The Dissolution of the Oedipus Complex” (1924), in The Standard Edition, vol. 19, trans. James Strachey (London: Hogarth Press, 1961), 175.
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 Sigmund Freud, Totem and Taboo (1913), in The Standard Edition, vol. 13, trans. James Strachey (London: Hogarth Press, 1955), 141.
  6. ↑ Sigmund Freud, Totem and Taboo, 142.
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 Jacques Lacan, “The Instance of the Letter in the Unconscious, or Reason Since Freud,” in Écrits: A Selection, trans. Alan Sheridan (New York: W. W. Norton, 1977), 48.
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 Jacques Lacan, “The Instance of the Letter in the Unconscious,” in Écrits: A Selection, 303.
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 Jacques Lacan, The Seminar of Jacques Lacan, Book III: The Psychoses, 1955–1956, trans. Russell Grigg (New York: W. W. Norton, 1993), 321.
  10. ↑ Jacques Lacan, The Seminar of Jacques Lacan, Book V: The Formations of the Unconscious, 1957–1958, trans. Russell Grigg (Cambridge: Polity, 2017).
  11. ↑ Jacques Lacan, “The Instance of the Letter in the Unconscious,” in Écrits: A Selection, trans. Alan Sheridan (New York: W. W. Norton, 1977), 158.
  12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 12.2 Jacques Lacan, “The Signification of the Phallus,” in Écrits: A Selection, trans. Alan Sheridan (New York: W. W. Norton, 1977), 285.
  13. ↑ Jacques Lacan, The Seminar of Jacques Lacan, Book III: The Psychoses, 1955–1956, trans. Russell Grigg (New York: W. W. Norton, 1993), 263.
  14. ↑ 14.0 14.1 Sigmund Freud, “Psycho-Analytic Notes on an Autobiographical Account of a Case of Paranoia (Dementia Paranoides)” (1911), in The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, vol. 12, trans. James Strachey (London: Hogarth Press, 1958).
  15. ↑ 15.0 15.1 15.2 Jacques Lacan, “The Direction of the Treatment and the Principles of Its Power,” in Écrits: A Selection, trans. Alan Sheridan (New York: W. W. Norton, 1977), 386.
  16. ↑ 16.0 16.1 16.2 16.3 16.4 Jacques Lacan, The Seminar of Jacques Lacan, Book XXIII: The Sinthome, 1975–1976, trans. A. R. Price (Cambridge: Polity, 2016).
  17. ↑ Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia, trans. Robert Hurley, Mark Seem, and Helen R. Lane (New York: Viking, 1977).
  18. ↑ Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; no text was provided for refs named copjecRead



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