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Father
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[[Image:Kida_f.gif|right|frame|[[Kid A In Alphabet Land]]]]
==Jacques Lacan==
===History===
From very early on in his [[Works of Jacques Lacan|work]], [[Lacan]] lays great importance on the [[role]] of the [[father]] in [[psychic structure]]. In his 1938 [[article on the family]], he attributes the importance of the [[Oedipus complex]] to the fact that it combines in the [[figure]] of the [[father]] two almost conflicting functions: the ''protective function'' and the ''prohibitive function''. He also points to the contemporary social decline in the [[paternal metaphor|paternal]] [[imago]] as the [[cause]] of current [[treatment|psychopathological]] peculiarities.<ref>{{1938}} p. 73</ref> The [[father]] continues to be a constant theme of [[Lacan]]'s [[work]] thereafter.
===Symbolic, Imaginary and Real===
However, the [[father]] is not a simple [[concept]] but a [[complex]] one, one which begs the question of what exactly is meant by the term "[[father]]."
It is in order to answer this question that, from 1953 on, [[Lacan]] stresses the importance of distinguishing between the [[symbolic]] [[father]], the [[imaginary]] [[father]] and the [[real]] [[father]].
<!--[[Lacan]] argues that the question "What is a father?" forms the central theme which runs throughout [[Freud]]'s entire work.<ref>{{S4}} p.204- 5</ref> -->
==The Symbolic Father==
The [[symbolic]] [[father]] is not a [[real]] [[being]] but a [[position]], a function, and hence is synonymous with the term "[[Name-of-the-Father|paternal function]]." This function is none [[other]] than that of imposing the [[law]] and regulating [[desire]] in the [[Oedipus complex]], of intervening in the [[imaginary]] [[dual relation]]ship between [[mother]] and [[child]] to introduce a necessary "[[symbolic|symbolic distance]]" between [[them]].<ref>{{S4}} p.161</ref>
The [[symbolic]] [[father]] is the fundamental element in the [[structure]] of the [[symbolic order]]; what distinguishes the [[symbolic order]] of [[culture]] from the [[imaginary order]] of [[nature]] is the inscription of a line of [[male]] descendence. The [[symbolic]] [[father]] is also referred to as the [[Name-of-the-Father]]. By [[structuring]] descendence into a series of generations, patrilineality introduces an [[order]] "whose structure is different from the [[natural]] order."<ref>{{S3}} p. 320</ref> The [[symbolic]] [[father]] is also the [[dead]] [[father]], the [[father]] of the [[primal horde]] who has been murdered by his own sons. It is the [[absence]] of the [[symbolic]] [[father]] which characterizes the [[essence]] of the [[psychotic]] [[structure]].
<!-- The [[presence]] of the [[imaginary]] [[phallus]] as a third term in the [[preoedipal phase|preoedipal]] [[imaginary|imaginary triangle]] indicates that the [[symbolic]] [[father]] is already functioning at the [[preoedipal phase|preoedipal stage]]; behind the [[symbolic]] [[mother]], there is always the [[symbolic]] [[father]]. -->
==The Imaginary Father==
==[[The Real]] Father== ===Agent of Castration===While [[Lacan]] is quite clear in defining what he means by the [[father|imaginaryfather]] and the [[father|symbolic father]], his remarks on the [[father|real father]] are quite obscure.<ref>{{S4}} p. 220</ref> [[Lacan]]'s only unequivocal formulation is that the [[father|real father]] is an the agent of [[castration]], the one who performs the operation of [[symbolic]] [[castration]].<ref>{{S17}} p. 149</ref><ref> {{S7}} p. 307</ref> <!-- ===Biological Father=== Apart from this, [[Lacan]] gives few other clues [[about]] what he means by the phrase. In 1960, he describes the [[father|real father]] as the one who 'effectively occupies' the [[mother]], the "Great Fucker",<ref>{{S7}} p.307</ref> and even goes on to say, in 1970, that the [[father|real father]] is the spermatozoon, though he immediately qualifies this [[statement]] with the remark that nobody has ever [[thought]] of himself as the son of a spermatozoon.<ref>{{S17}} p.148</ref> On the basis of these comments, it seems possible to argue that the [[father|real father]] is the [[biological]] [[father]] of the [[imagosubject]]. However, since a degree of uncertainty always surrounds the composite question of all who the [[biological]] [[father]] really is ('"pater semper incertus est", while the [[imaginarymother]] is "certissima"'; <ref>{{F}} 1909c. [[SE]] constructs IX, 239<ref> it would be more precise to say that the [[subject|real father]] is the man who is said to be the [[subject]]'s [[biological]] builds up [[father]]. The [[father|real father]] is thus an effect of [[language]], and it is in this [[sense]] that the adjective [[fantasyreal]]is to be [[understood] around ] here: the figure [[real]] of [[language]], rather than the [[fatherreal]] of [[biology]].<ref>{{S17}} p.147-8</ref> -->
<!-- The intervention of the [[imaginaryfather|real father]] as agent of [[fathercastration]] is not simply equivalent to his [[physical]] presence in the [[family]]. As the [[case]] can be construed as an ideal of [[fatherLittle Hans]]indicates,<ref>{{S1F}} p1909c.156'{{E}} p.321[[SE]] IX, 239</ref> or the opposite, [[father|real father]] may be physically [[present]] and yet fail to intervene as "the father who has fucked the kid upagent of [[castration]]."<ref>{{S7S4}} p.308212, 221</ref> Conversely, the intervention of the [[father|real father]] may well be felt by the [[child]] even when the [[father]] is physically [[absent]]. -->
{{OK}}[[PsychosisCategory:Development]] and [[perversionCategory:Symbolic]] both involve, in different ways, a reduction of the [[symbolic]] [[father]] to the [[imaginary]] [[father]].{{KIDA}}