Talk:Prohibition (psychoanalysis)

Prohibition (French: interdiction; German: Verbot) in psychoanalysis refers to the internal and external constraints—symbolic, social, and moral—that regulate desire, repress drives, and structure the formation of the subject. First formulated by Sigmund Freud and later developed by Jacques Lacan, prohibition plays a central role in the development of the unconscious, the superego, and the structuring of the Oedipus complex, linking individual psychology with broader cultural and symbolic systems.

Psychoanalytic prohibition is not simply a cultural rule or a legal injunction; it is a structuring function that shapes the psychic economy by delimiting what can be desired, spoken, or acted upon. Prohibition both generates repression and paradoxically produces desire by rendering its object inaccessible.

Origins in Freud: The Oedipus Complex and Incest Taboo

Freud’s earliest writings on prohibition emerge from his theory of the Oedipus complex, in which the child’s incestuous desire for the opposite-sex parent is met with a prohibition—either through fear of castration or loss of love. This interdiction is internalized and becomes a key moment in the development of the superego.

In Totem and Taboo (1913), Freud theorized that the incest taboo—the prohibition of sexual relations within the family—is not merely a social norm but a universal structure of civilization. He posits a primal murder of the father by the sons of the "primal horde," whose subsequent guilt leads to the internalization of paternal authority and the foundation of morality, law, and society.

Prohibition and the Superego

In Freud’s structural model of the psyche—id, ego, and superego—prohibition is internalized through the emergence of the superego, which serves as the internal moral authority. Formed through identification with the parental figures who impose prohibition, the superego both enforces societal norms and generates feelings of guilt, anxiety, and self-criticism in response to forbidden desires.

The superego thus represents the psychic inscription of prohibition, regulating the instincts of the id and creating inner conflict when desire comes into tension with moral injunctions.

Prohibition, Drive, and Repression

Prohibition operates in tandem with Freud’s theory of drive (Trieb) and repression. The drive seeks satisfaction, but prohibition—whether cultural, moral, or internal—blocks direct access to that satisfaction. This conflict results in repression, where the unacceptable impulse is forced out of conscious awareness and often returns in disguised forms, such as dreams, slips of the tongue, or neurotic symptoms.

Prohibition is therefore not only a social mechanism but a psychic operator that structures unconscious desire and symptom formation.

Lacan: The Symbolic Function of Prohibition

Jacques Lacan reinterprets prohibition within the framework of language and the symbolic order. For Lacan, the primary prohibition is the law of the father, instantiated by the Name-of-the-Father (Nom-du-Père)—a signifier that interrupts the child’s dyadic relation with the mother and institutes symbolic castration.

This paternal function imposes the incest taboo and structures the subject’s entry into language, law, and desire. For Lacan, the prohibition does not suppress desire but rather creates it: desire emerges in relation to what is forbidden. The barred or lost object (objet petit a) becomes the organizing point of the subject's pursuit of jouissance—a form of enjoyment that exceeds normative pleasure.

Prohibition and Transgression

Lacan emphasizes that prohibition and transgression are dialectically linked. What is forbidden becomes charged with desirability. In this sense, prohibition does not eliminate the drive but redirects it—often toward perverse, symptomatic, or compulsive expressions. As Alenka Zupančič notes, transgression is not a negation of the law but one of its effects: it sustains the law’s authority by staging its violation.

In contemporary societies, overt prohibitions may give way to implicit injunctions to enjoy (“You must enjoy”), which operate as new forms of prohibition, producing anxiety, dissatisfaction, and new symptom formations.

Clinical and Cultural Implications

In clinical practice, the analyst attends to how prohibition is structured in the subject’s unconscious: which desires have been repressed, how they return in symptoms, and how the superego’s demands shape guilt, inhibition, or compulsive behavior.

Culturally, psychoanalytic theory treats prohibition not merely as an artifact of repression but as a structural necessity for both the psyche and the social order. The incest taboo, in particular, is seen as a universal symbolic prohibition that grounds kinship systems, legal codes, and the transmission of desire.

See Also

• Oedipus complex
• Superego
• Repression
• Symbolic order
• Drive (psychoanalysis)
• Name-of-the-Father
• Taboo
• Jouissance