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The Mirror Stage As Formative of the Function of the I As Revealed in Ps

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The Mirror Stage As Formative of the Function of the I As Revealed in Ps ONE The mirror stageas formativeof the function of the I as revealedin psychoanalytic experienc.e Deliveredat the r6th IntemationalCongress of Psychoanalysis,Ztirich, July 4t r94g I}"{{ 'l'lte conceptionof the mirror stagethat I introduced at our last congress, tltirtccn years ago, has since become more or less establishedin the pnctice of the French group. However, I think it worthwhile to bring it rguin to your attention, especiallytoday, for the light it sheds on the firrtrtationof the.f aswe experienceit in psychoanalysis.It is an experience tlrnt leadsus to oppose any philosophy directly issuing from the Cogito. .Someof you may recall that this conception originated in a featureof human behaviour illuminated by a fact of comparativepsychology. The clrild, at an age when he is for a time, however short, outdone by the eltinrpanzeein instrumental intelligence,can neverthelessalready recog- nlr as such his own image in a mirror. This recognition is indicated in tlrc illuminative mimicry of the Aha-Erlebnis, which Kohler seesas the orprcssion of situational apperception,an essentialstage of the act of lntclligence. 'l'lris act, far from exhaustingitself, as in the caseof the monkey, once tlre inragehas been masteredand found empty, immediately rebounds lrt thc caseof the child in a seriesof gesturesin which he experiencesin phy the relation betweenthe movementsassumed in the image and the rcflt'ctcdenvironment, and betweenthis virtual complex and the reality it rduplicates - the child's own body, and the personsand things, around lrim. 'l'his cvent can take place,as we have known sinceBaldwin, from the rf{e'o{'six months, and its repetitionhas often mademe reflectupon the rt.trtling spcctacleof the infant in front of the mirror. Unable as yet to w.rlk, ()r cvcn to stand up, and held tightly as he is by some support, Ittttrurrrrrr arti{icial (what, in France,we calla'trotte-bibi')rhe nevertheless ov('rc()l'n('s,in a fluttt'rof jubilantactivity, the obstructionsof his support z Ecrits: A Selection The mirror stage 3 I and, fixing his attitude in a slightly leaning-forward position, in order to dominatehim, or with the automatonin which, in an ambiguousrelation, I hold it in his gaze,brings back an instantaneousaspect of the image. rhe world of his own making tends to find completion. I For me, this activity retainsthe meaningI have given it up to the age Indeed, for the imagos- whose veiled facesit is our privilege to seein of eighteenmonths. This meaning disclosesa libidinal dynamism,which outline in our daily experienceand in the penumbraof symbolic efficacityz has hitherto remainedproblematic, as well as an ontological structure of the mirror-image would seemto be the threshold of the visible world, the human world that accordswith my reflectionson paranoiacknowledge. lf we go by the mirror dispositionthat theimago of one'sown body Presents 'We have only to understand the mirror stagec$ an identifcation, in the in hallucinationsor dreams,whether it concernsits individual features, full sensethat analysisgives to the term: namely, the transformationthat or even its infirmities, or its obiect-projections;or i.f we observethe role takesplace in the subjectwhen he assumesan image - whose predestina- of the mirror apparatusin the appearancesof the doublerinwhich psychical tion to this phase-effectis sufficiently indicated by the use, in analytic rcalities,however heterogeneous,are manifested. theory, of the ancient term imago. 'Ihat a Gestalt should be capableof formative effectsin the organism This assumptionof his specularimage by the child at the kfans lr attestedby piece of biological experimentationthat is itself so alien iubilant " stage,still sunk in his motor incapacityand nursling dependence,would to rhe idea of psychical causalitythat it cannot bring itself to formulate seemto exhibit in an exemplary situation the symbolic matrix in which 16 resultsin these terms. It neverthelessrecognizes that it is a necessary the .I is precipitated in a primordial form, before it is obiectified in the qrndition for the maturation of the gonad of the female pigeon that it dialecticof identification with the other, and before languagerestores to rlrould see another member of its species,of either sex; so sufficient in it, in the universal, its function as subject. filclf is this condition that the desiredeffect may be obtained merely by This form would have to be called the ldeal-I,l if we wished to in- phcing the individual within reach of the field of reflection of a mirror. corporate it into our usual register, in the sensethat it will also be the Similarly, in the case of the migratory locust, the transition within a sourceof secondaryidentifications, under which term I would place the fencration from the solitary to the gregariousform can be obtained by functions of libidinal normalization. But the important point is that this crposing the individual, at a certain stage,to the exclusivelyvisual action form situatesthe agencyof the ego, before its social determination,in a of ;r similar image, provided it is animatedby movementsof a style suffi- fictional direction, which will always remain irreducible for the individual cicntly closeto that characteristicof the species.Such facts are inscribed alone,or rather, which will only reioin the coming-into-being (le devenir) fn un order of homeomorphicidentification thatwould itself fallwithin the of the subiect asymptotically, whatever the successof the dialectical brycr quesrionof the meaningof beauty as both formative and erogenic. synthesesby which he must resolve as .I his discordancewith his own llut the factsof mimicry are no lessinstructive when conceivedas cases reality. of hctcromorphic identification, in as much as they raise the problem of The fact is that the total form of the body by which the subjectantici- tlre significationof spacefor the living organism- psychologicalconcePts pates in a mirage the maturation of his power is given to him only as lurrlly seemless appropriatefor shedding light on these mattersthan Gestaltrthatis to say,in an exteriority in which this form is certainly more rftlicukrusattempts to reducethem to the supposedlysupreme law of constituent than constituted,but in which it appearsto him above all in rrlapration.We have only to recall how Roger Caillois (who"was then a contrasting size (un relief de stature) that fixes it and in a symmetry that vrry young, and still fresh from his breachwith the sociologicalschool inverts it, in contrast with the turbulent movementsthat the subiect feels In rvlrich hc was trained) illuminated the subject by using the term are animating him. Thus, this Gesralt- whose pregnancy shouid be re- 'legcnlur.ypsychastltenia' to classify morphological mimicry as an ob- garded as bound up with the species,though its motor style remains rnrirn rvitlrspace in its derealizingeffect. scarcelyrecognizable - by thesetwo aspectsof its appearance,symbolizes I lurvcrnysclf shown in the socialdialectic that structureshuman know- the mentalpermanenceof thedat the sametime asit prefiguresitsalienat- hrlg,. rs l)i.rranoiac3rvlry lrumanknowledge has greaterautonomy than ing destination;it is still pregnantwith thc corrcspondencesthat unite the onirrr.rlkrrorvlt.rlgt,in rcl;.tliorr lo rlrcllcld of firrceof desire,but alsowhy .I with the statuein which man projcctslrirnst'll, rvitlr thc phantomsthat Irtrrrr.rrrkrr,,rvlt'rlgt'is <lctt'r'rrrinr'<l in tlrat'littlc rcality' (ce peu de r6alitd), Ecrits: A Selection The mirror stage which the Surrealists,in their resdessw4y, saw as its limitation. These from the fifteenth century to the imaginary zenith of modern man. But this reflectionslead me to recognizein the spatialcaptation manifested in the firrm is even tangibly revealedat the organic level, in the lines of 'fta$liza- mirror-stage, even before the social dialectic, the effect in man of an tion' that definethe anatomy of phantasy,as exhibited in the schizoidand organic insufficiency in his natural realiry - in so far as any meaning can rpasmodicsymptoms of hysteria. be given to the word 'nature'. Correlatively, the formation of the .I is symbolized in dreams by a I am led, therefore, to regard the function of the mirror-stage as a firrtress, or a stadium - its inner arena and enclosure, surrounded by particular caseof the function of the imagorwhich is to establisha relation marshesand rubbish-tips, dividing it into two opposed fields of contest between the organism and its reality - or: as they say, between the where the subject flounders in quest of the loftyr.remote inner castle fnnenwelt and the Umwelt. wltoseform (sometimesjuxtaposed in the samescenario) symbolizes the fn man, however, this relation to nature is altered by u certain de- ld in a quite startling way. Similarly, on the mental plane,we find realized hiscenceat the heart of the organism, a primordial Discord betrayedby tlte structures of fortified works, the metaphor of which arises spon- the signs of uneasinessand motor unco-ordination of the neo-natal hneously, as if issuing from the symptoms themselves,to designatethe months. The obiective notion of the anatomicalincompleteness of the mechanismsof obsessionalneurosis - inversion, isoladon, reduplication, pyramidal system and likewise the presenceof certain humoral residues cencellationand displacement. of the maternal organism confirm the view I have formulated as the fact But if we were to build on these subiective givens alone - however of a real specifcprematurity of birth in man. llttle we free them from the
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