Prohibition

The term prohibition has been borrowed by psychoanalysis from everyday language, where it is used either as an adjective to describe something we are not allowed to do, say, see, think, or be; or substantively to refer to the law, social constraint, moral education, and so on, on which this prohibition is based. Psychoanalytic language gives a more precise meaning to the term, however. Prohibition can present itself to the subject as external, and be internalized as a result of its associated dynamic of conflict; it can also result...