Development
development (dÈveloppement) Psychoanalysis is presented by EGO-
PSYCHOLOGY as a form of developmental psychology, with the emphasis placed
on the temporal development of the child's sexuality. According to this
interpretation, Freud shows how the child progresses through the various
pregenital stages (the oral and anal stages) to maturity in the GENITAL Stage.
In his early work Lacan seems to accept this developmental reading of
Freud (which he labels 'geneticism'), at least in the matter of a genetic
order for the three 'family complexes' (Lacan, 1938) and for ego defences
(E, 5). As late as 1950 he takes seriously such genetic concepts as 'objectal
fixation' and 'stagnation of development' (Ec, 148). However, in the early
1950s he begins to become extremely critical of geneticism for various
reasons. Firstly, it presupposes a natural order for sexual development and
takes no account of the symbolic articulation of human sexuality, thus
ignoring the fundamental differences between drives and instincts. Sec-
ondly, it is based on a linear concept of time which is completely at
odds with the psychoanalytic theory of TIME. Finally, it assumes that a
final synthesis of sexuality is both possible and normal, whereas for Lacan
no such synthesis exists. Thus, while both ego-psychology and oBJECT-RELA-
TIONS THEORY propose the concept of a final stage of psychosexual develop-
ment, in which the subject attains a 'mature' relation with the object,
described as a genital relation, this is totally rejected by Lacan. Lacan
argues that such a state of final wholeness and maturity is not possible
because the subject is irremediably split, and the metonymy of desire is
unstoppable. Furthermore, Lacan points out that 'the object which corre-
sponds to an advanced stage of instinctual maturity is a rediscovered object'
(S4, 15); the so-called final stage of maturity is nothing more than the
encounter with the object of the first satisfactions of the child.
Lacan disputes the geneticist reading of Freud, describing it as a 'mythology
of instinctual maturation' (E, 54). He argues that the various 'stages' analysed
by Freud (oral, anal and genital) are not observable biological phenomena
which develop naturally, such as the stages of sensoriomotor development, but
'obviously more complex structures' (E, 242). The pregenital stages are not
chronologically ordered moments of a child's development, but essentially
timeless structures which are projected retroactively onto the past; 'they are
ordered in the retroaction of the Oedipus complex' (E, 197). Lacan thus
dismisses all attempts to draw empirical evidence for the sequence of psycho-
sexual stages by means of 'the so-called direct observation of the child' (E,
242), and places the emphasis on the reconstruction of such stages in the
analysis of adults; 'It is by starting with the experience of the adult that we
an analyst, is to undergo analytic treatment oneself. In the course of this
treatment there will be a mutation in the economy of desire in the analyst-
to-be; his desire will be restructured, reorganised (S8, 221-2). Only if this
happens will he be able to function properly as an analyst.
References