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[[Self]]-[[consciousness ]] is the [[mental ]] [[activity ]] through which the [[subject ]] feels a [[sense ]] of [[being ]] or existing as a unique and [[total ]] [[individual]]. Although it does not obviate the [[idea ]] of the [[unconscious]], this [[notion ]] comes out of reflexive [[philosophy ]] and its derivatives that hold that the [[human ]] faculty of consciousness, [[apparent ]] to itself and having itself as its [[object]], marks the primacy of consciousness in the definition of the human [[psyche]]. This sense of identity, this initial [[subjective ]] stance, is established gradually, being linked with the general [[development ]] of the human [[mind ]] in its [[relationship ]] to itself and the [[outside ]] [[world]].This notion has taken on different forms throughout [[intellectual ]] [[history]], beginning with René [[Descartes]]'s [[insistence ]] on the primacy of consciousness in the human mind. In the nineteenth century, after Georg Wilhelm Friedrich [[Hegel]]'s [[work ]] but before that of Edmund [[Husserl]], Franz von Brentano posited self-consciousness as being secondary to consciousness or [[intentionality ]] toward the object. Husserl inverted that [[order]], positing a reflective unit that is the mental locus of the relationship between subject and world, a pro-nominal [[form ]] in which the subject, through [[discourse]], [[identifies ]] with what it believes it is or would like to be. This [[internal ]] [[perception ]] is also linked to the [[specular ]] [[image ]] of the [[body]].Finally, this notion is found in the work of Ludovic Dugas, a late-nineteenth-century semiologist. Drawing from the work of Hippolyte Taine and Théodule Ribot, Dugas approached the idea of self-consciousness from a [[negative ]] perspective by [[looking ]] at its dysfunction: "[[state]][s] in which the subject feels estranged from his being and from things and begins to [[doubt ]] that all that he is [[feeling ]] is [[real]]." Such states entail alienation and the ego's inner [[loss ]] of meaning—a loss of the immediate grasp of the ego's own inner states and the sense of existing. This sense of self-[[estrangement ]] when the subject, in a state of indifference, feels his [[acts ]] and emotions eluding him, is called <i>depersonalization</i> or <i>loss of self-consciousness</i>.The idea of mental activity that supposedly situates the individual as being self-[[present ]] and in an unmediated state in relation to himself, first attacked by Friedrich [[Nietzsche]], was to be further diminished by Sigmund [[Freud ]] and [[psychoanalysis]]. Jacques [[Lacan ]] showed how Freud's discoveries decentered the subject from the self-consciousness heretofore upheld by [[Hegelian ]] philosophy and the [[solipsism ]] of the [[Cartesian ]] [[cogito]]. In "The [[Mirror ]] [[Stage ]] As Formative of the <i>I</i> Function" (1949/2002), Lacan describes the [[conditions ]] for the [[appearance ]] of self-consciousness: the [[moment ]] when the [[infant]], first in its [[mother]]'s arms and later, once the [[baby ]] is physically able, by itself, can "already recognize his own image as such in a mirror. This [[recognition ]] is indicated by the illuminative [[mimicry ]] of the <i>Aha-Erlebnis</i>" (p. 3). This jubilatory assumption on the part of the infant situates the ego and the recognition of the [[bodily ]] [[imago ]] within the necessary mediation of the [[gaze ]] and the [[desire ]] of the [[other]], initially represented by the mother. Without letting himself be caught up within the [[fiction ]] of this movement, Lacan emphasizes "the [[imaginary ]] [[capture ]] of the self through specular [[reflection ]] within the function of [[misrecognition ]] [<i>méconnaissancemé[[connaissance]]</i>] that remains attached to it" since alienation is the fact of the subject who is not "a being [[conscious ]] of itself." [[Jean Laplanche ]] later called this mental activity the "capability or incapability of consciousness."[[Child ]] psychoanalysis (Donald [[Winnicott]], Serge Lebovici, and Michel Soulé) defines the child's sense of existing within the movement of his or her [[constitution ]] of an inner [[universe]], a container that makes possible relations with the self and the outside world. This container is elaborated gradually beginning with the child's [[experience ]] with the mother, which is never totalizing, and it keeps the subject from being [[absent ]] from itself. The child's rudimentary ego, after a period where there is no [[distinction ]] between it and the world, creates a boundary where the <i>I</i> and the not-<i>I</i> are distinguishable, just as the image of the body takes on [[wholeness]].Didier Anzieu emphasizes in <i>The Skin-Ego</i> (1985) that "all mental function, in its development, is supported by a bodily function whose workings it transposes onto the mental plane." This implies that all ego feeling is both mental and corporeal. Involved here are the subject's sense of continuity in [[time]], of proximity to self, of [[causality ]] (the <i>I</i>), and of boundaries of which the subject is not always conscious, but which are revealed when normal mechanisms fail (depersonalization and certain states of mystical ecstasy). Carl Gustav [[Jung]], although he prefers to [[speak ]] in [[terms ]] of "ego-consciousness," also [[links ]] this mental activity to the child's progressive individual differentiation. If the mother is the condition for the appearance of ego-consciousness, she is also that from which the child must distinguish itself. The [[process ]] of individuation becomes merged with self-consciousness and "[[affect ]] enables us to experience consciousness of ourselves with greater acuity and intensity." Finally, in Freud's work the notion of self-consciousness is not often used. In <i>The [[Interpretation ]] of [[Dreams]]</i> (1900) he emphasizes that self-consciousness is suspended in dreams. In "On [[Narcissism]]: An Introduction" (1914) he links it to, on the one hand, [[moral ]] consciousness, which serves [[philosophical ]] [[introspection]], and, on the other, to the self-perception that nourishes self-esteem. In "Group [[Psychology ]] and the [[Analysis ]] of the Ego" (1921) this sense of continuity that the individual acquires through his traditions, habits, and sphere of activity, this conscious [[personality]], this "[[voice ]] of consciousness" will be overtaken by the force of [[suggestion ]] and [[hypnosis ]] or, alternatively, will be deemed to be temporarily lost to the individual "following his absorption into the crowd."Expanded [[knowledge ]] [[about ]] [[children]], [[neurology]], and the study of failures of self-consciousness can provide a better approach. It should also be noted that the distinctions between the self (in the various usages of that term) and the ego can [[help ]] to establish with precision their locus and movement.Overall, the notion of self-consciousness remains marked by its philosophical origins. There can be no [[complete ]] assurance of its consistency within psychoanalysis.

# Anzieu, Didier. (1989). The skin ego. New Haven and [[London]]: Yale [[University ]] Press. (Original work published 1985)

# [[Freud, Sigmund]]. (1921). [[Group psychology ]] and the analysis of the ego. SE, 18: 65-143.# [[Lacan, Jacques]]. (2002). [[The mirror stage ]] as formative of the I function. InÉcrits: A selection ([[Bruce Fink]], Trans.). New York: W. W. Norton. (Original work published 1949)