According to Lacan, human subjectivity is grounded in three basic registers, which he names

the Symbolic, the Imaginary, and the Real. Stated very succinctly, the Symbolic is the order of
language; the Imaginary is the order of visual, spatial, and kinesic experience (related in
various ways to Piaget's sensori-motor stage) and hence of the body image and body ego; and
the Real is that dimension both of one's own body and of the rest of the world that is neither
captured nor controlled by the Symbolic or the Imaginary register.

THE SYMBOLIC ORDER

Master Signifiers

Consider first the Symbolic Order, the central instance of which is language. Lacan emphasizes
two fundamental aspects of the Symbolic order as sources of identity, anxiety, desire, and
enjoyment. The first is the value of particular signifiers within a given code, or positions within a
given system. Any code or system- whether it be a general cultural code, a professional code, a
familial code, the code of a particular organization, or the organization itself as an articulated
system of positions-valorizes certain signifiers or positions above others, and it is these
valorized positions, these signifiers, that we desire (often desperately) to embody. Such
signifiers, according to Lacan, constitute our ego ideal, and the extent to which we convince
ourselves that we embody these signifiers determines to a significant extent our sense of
identity and self-worth. The ego ideal is constituted through our identification with certain key
signifiers, or "master signifiers," which include words such as "man," "woman," "athlete,"
"scholar," "fair," "honest," "powerful," "independent," "sensitive," "shrewd," "brilliant," "daring,"
"innovative," and "competitive" that define us, give us identity, for ourselves and for others.
This aspect of our identity-construction begins when we begin to learn language. In learning
language, we come to recognize ourselves as either male or female and as being of a certain
race, ethnic group, class, religion, and nationality, as well as being "good" or "bad," "smart" or
"dumb," "strong" or "weak," "big" or "small," and so on.

These signifiers of our identity are very precious to us, for they are quite literally essential
elements of our being. Our embodiment of signifiers valorized within a code can provide us with
a profound sense of well being and enjoyment, and, conversely, our failure to embody such a
signifier, or our embodiment of signifiers denigrated within a given code, can cause us severe
anxiety or depression or evoke powerful feelings of aggression in us. Thus a fundamental and
continuous aim, present to some degree, although not necessarily consciously, in virtually every
utterance and action, is to consolidate and enhance our ego and its sense of identity by allowing
the ego to recognize itself as embodying the signifiers constituting its ego ideal. We can see the
significance of this identification with signifiers by observing the extent to which people will go
to defend both the integrity of their identity-bearing "master" signifiers, as well as their own
claim to these signifiers: most people become upset when someone denigrates one of their
master signifiers--as, for example, in the statement, "Men are pigs!" or when someone
threatens to deprive them of one of their master signifiers, as with a statement like, "You're not
a real man!" or "You're not a true American!"

This powerful need we have to reassert both the importance of our master signifiers and our
embodiment of these signifiers is frequently a cause of suffering both to ourselves and to
others, because it coerces us to repress qualities, desires, and enjoyments that contradict these
master signifiers, as well as to try to manufacture desires and enjoyments that we don't have.
The signifier "girl," for example, with its connotations of "sugar and spice and everything nice,"
traditionally coerced many young women to repress their aggressive impulses and feelings of
anger, while the signifier "boy" has functioned to encourage the manufacture or simulation of
aggression where it does not exist and the repression or denial of passive impulses and feelings
of tenderness or vulnerability.

One aim of Lacanian psychoanalysis is thus to help clients become aware of their master
signifiers and of the conflicts and suffering these signifiers are causing. Such a strategy is also
available for psychoanalytic intervention in organizations and other groups. In fact, although not
always labelled psychoanalytic, this strategy has been a valuable resource of various liberation
movements. Women's liberation, for example, produced through various consciousness-raising
activities the general recognition that the master signifier "lady" was a significant factor in the