We have only to understand the mirror stage as an identification, in the full sense that analysis gives to the term: namely, the transformation that places in the subject when he assumes an image...
"The Mirror Stage as Formative of the Function of the I, as Revealed in Psychoanalytic Experience" is the signature work of Lacan, the one most often referenced, and a foundational work in the field. The essay is complex, complicated, and revolutionary but ultimately the concept can be simply stated and merely requires an ability to extrapolate in order to get at its complexities. This is the quote where it is simply stated. The extrapolation begins by taking just a few seconds to think about the myriad ways in which people assume an image of themselves and the transformations that subsequently take place.
The meaning of a return to Freud is a return to the meaning of Freud. And the meaning of what Freud said may be conveyed to anyone because, addressed as it is to all, it concerns each individual: to make this clear, one has only to remember that Freud's discovery puts truth into question, and there is no one who is not personally concerned by the truth.
"The Freudian Thing, or the Meaning of a Return to Freud in Psychoanalysis" is an interesting topic for the author to take up as a subject because of his place within the field. When the average person thinks of psychoanalytic psychology, they think of Freud, almost as if the two things were synonymous. In reality, there is a small very select group of names that are as significant as Freud in the actual discipline as practice and one of those names is Lacan himself. In other words, there are Freudian psychologists and there are Lacanian psychologists. The quote here encompasses the real objective of the piece: the details of Freudianism are not as important as the overarching fact that he no only changed everything, but opened the door for all the change to come in his wake.
If, in effect, the man finds satisfaction for his demand for love in the relation with the woman, in as much as the signifier of the phallus constitutes her as giving in love what she does not have—conversely, his own desire for the phallus will make its signifier emerge in its persistent divergence toward `another woman' who may signify this phallus in various ways, either as a virgin or as a prostitute.
This quote from "The Signification of the Phallus" is situated here as a reminder that Lacan's writings are academic in nature and geared toward a readership steeped in the history and knowledge of psychology. It is this example which is more representative of his work and if in reading it one finds it confusing or too complex to quickly arrive at an interpretation of meaning, well, don't fret. That is exactly how the average person is supposed to feel upon reading Lacan. He possessed a brilliant mind, but it was not a mind constructed for the purpose of breaking down sophisticated theoretical propositions into the Twitterverse of the easily digested and swiftly forgotten ruminations. And, besides, almost everything having to do with the signification of the phallus has long since been dismissed thanks in large part to the response by Helene Cixous.
