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In Lacan's pre-1950s work, the concept of repetition is linked with that of the [[complex]] - an internalised social structure which the subject repeatedly and compulsively re-enacts. At this time Lacan often translates Freud's Wiederholungszwang as automatisme de rÈpÈtition, a term borrowed from French psychiatry. <ref>Pierre Janet, GaÎtan Gatian de ClÈrambault</ref>
While Lacan never completely abandons the term automatisme de rÈpÈtition, in the 1950s he increasingly uses the term 'insistence' (Fr. instance) to refer to the repetition compulsion. Thus repetition is -- now defined -- as the insistence of the signifier, or the insistence of the signifying chain, or the insistence of the letter (l'instance de la lettre); 'repetition is fundamentally the insistence of speech.'<ref>S3, 242</ref> Certain signifiers insist on returning in the life of the subject, despite the resistances which block them. In [[schemaLschema L]], repetition / insistence is represented by the axis A-S, while the axis a-a' represents the resistance (or 'inertia') which opposes repetition.
In the 1960s, repetition is redefined as the return of jouissance, an excess of enjoyment which returns again and again to transgress the limits of the [[pleasure principle]] and seek death.<ref> (S17, 51</ref>
Repetition is the general characteristic of the signifying chain, the manifestation of the unconscious in every subject, and transference is only a very special form of repetition (i.e. it is repetition within psychoanalytic treatment), which cannot simply be equated with the repetition compulsion itself. <ref>S8, 208</ref>
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[[Category:Jacques Lacan]]
