Lacan was a French psychoanalyst and acquired a reputation as an interpreter of Sigmund Freud’s work. He earned a medical degree and started a career as a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst. He gained a reputation after the publication of Ecrits in 1966. This is a kind of extended lecture for graduate-level students. Sometimes he is referred to as French Freude. Because Lacan’s teaching and writing explain the importance of Freud’s major concept of the unconscious.
Unconscious
Lacan offered a re-reading of Freud’s theories in the light of linguistics. The 1950s and 1960s were the time of structuralism. He developed a structuralist theory of psychoanalysis based on the work of the Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure.
One of Lacan’s famous concepts is about the unconscious. Lacan says that the unconscious part of the human mind is structured like a language. By this, he means that the unconscious used linguistic means of self-expression. the unconscious is an orderly network, it is complex as the structure of language.
Stages of development.
The stages of child development is another contribution of Jacques Lacan. According to Lacan, the development of a child has three stages: a real stage, an imaginary stage, and a symbolic stage.
- The real stage is the initial stage of a child’s development. The child feels a unified identity with the mother and has no sense of separation.
- The second stage is the mirror stage, where a child feels a distinction between self and the other. The mirror stage is the second stage of child development that occurs between 6-18 months. In this stage, the child attains the first realization of his bodily autonomy and he started to realize different identities like man/woman, West/East, and so.
- The symbolic stage is the third stage of child development, where the child can use language. Apart from that child also learns the rules and regulations around him.