24,656
edits
Changes
no edit summary
"[[father]]" ([[Fr]]. ''[[père]]'')
From very early on in his [[Works of Jacques Lacan|work]], [[Lacan]] lays great importance on the role of the [[father]] in [[psychic structure]].
The father continues to be a constant theme of [[Lacan]]'s work thereafter.
----
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]].
==The Symbolic Father==
--
The [[presence]] of the [[imaginary]] [[phallus]] as a third term in the [[preoedipal phase|preoedipal]] [imaginary|imaginary triangle]] indicates that the [[symbolic]] [[father]] is alreay functioning at the [[preoedipal phase|preoedipal stage; behind the [[symbolic]] [[mother]], there is always the [[symbolic]] [[father]].
[[Psychosis]] and [[perversion]] both involve, in different ways, a reduction of the [[symbolic]] [[father]] to the [[imaginary]] [[father]].
==The real father==
While Lacan is quite clear in defining what he means by the imaginary father and the symbolic father, his remarks on the real father are quite obscure.<ref>{{S4}} p.220</ref>
Lacan's only unequivocal formulation is that the real father is the agent of castration, the one who performs the operation of symbolic castration.<ref>{{Sl7}} p.149; {{S7}} p.307</ref>
Apart from this, Lacan gives few other clues about what he means by the phrase.
In 1960, he describes the 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 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>{{Sl7}} p.148</ref>
On the basis of these comments, it seems possible to argue that the real father is the biological father of the subject.
However, since a degree of uncertainty always surrounds the question of who the biological father really is ('"pater semper incertus est", while the mother is "certissima"'; <ref>Freud, 1909c: SE IX, 239<ref> it would be more precise to say that the real father is the man who is said to be the subject's biological father.
The real father is thus an effect of language, and it is in this sense that the adjective real is to be understood here: the real of language, rather than the real of biology.<ref>{{Sl7}} p.147-8</ref>
---
The real father plays a crucial role in the Oedipus complex; it is he who intervenes in the third 'time' of the Oedipus complex as the one who castrates the child (see [[castration complex]]).
This intervention saves the child from the preceding anxiety; without it, the child requires a phobic object as a symbolic substitute for the absent real father.
The intervention of the real father as agent of castration is not simply equivalent to his physical presence in the family.
As the case of Little Hans indicates,<ref>Freud, 1909b</ref> the real father may be physically present and yet fail to intervene as agent of castration.<ref>S4, 212, 221</ref>
Conversely, the intervention of the real father may well be felt by the child even when the father is physically absent.
==See Also==
* [[Castration complex]]
* [[Dual relation]]
* [[Foreclosure]]
* [[Name-of-the-Father]]
==References==
<references/>
[[Category:Psychoanalysis]]
[[Category:Jacques Lacan]]
[[Category:Dictionary]]
[[Category:Symbolic]]
[[Category:Concepts]]
[[Category:Terms]]
{{Les termes}}
