Name- of the- Father in Lacanian Psychoanalysis and in Jewish Tradition

Abstract

This paper will focus on the way the Jewish theological idea of the hidden name of G-d and its verbal

expression in the Bible can shed new light on two of the most enigmatic notions of the Jacques Lacan’s

school of psychoanalysis, namely the ‘Name-of- the- Father’ and the etiology of psychosis. As Lacan

unabashedly said: “Maybe in ten years, people will understand my work” (Skinner, 2014). Indeed, his

sentiment feels true. His work is complex: full of paradoxes, associations, linguistic, theological, and

anthropological references and literary allusions. After developing his theory of language and psychosis,

Lacan broke ties with the psychiatric establishment and founded a new school of theory and practice.

Like Freud, Lacan challenged the classic western tradition of evidence- based diagnostic practices and

continued to develop his unique approach to understanding the human psychic reality.

Many clinicians find it difficult to apply Lacan’s work to their practices. His concepts are perceived to be

extremely abstract and removed from clinical practice. This paper reflects our attempt to close this gap

and build the bridge between theory and practice, while elaborating on the Jewish theological doctrine of

the Name of the Divine and the function of language as a tool to connect to Divinity.

Contrary to many Lacanian scholars, the primary author turned to Lacan through clinical work at the

office. The following clinical vignette will shed a light on the practical clinical implication of Lacanian

theory of Paternity in general and “Foreclosure of Name-of-the-Father in particular. In her clinical

practice she is seeing a couple relocated to US from another country. They came to the therapy office in

the midst of the conflict. The wife had experienced homesickness, longed to return home and had extreme
difficulties in adjusting to American life. Client’s relocation to US has triggered her childhood trauma of

losing her father at age 13. She described him as a powerful figure in her family life: the provider, the

caretaker, the source of client’s emotional comfort. After his sudden death, at age 13, my client’s mother

became severely depressed, quit her job and failed to provide maternal care for her three children. My

client became a surrogate mother for her 5 year old younger sister doing all the cooking, cleaning, taking

her younger sister to school and from school, performing all household chores. The patient recalled her

adolescent years with a sense of loneliness, social disconnect, severe and an overwhelming sense of

responsibility. At the age 19 P and her family relocated to Israel where she briefly dated and married her

current husband who became to be her main source of support and comfort from the early days of their

marriage until their relocation to US. She associated her severe distress that she experienced as a result of

moving to US, with her husband’s inability to continue providing that protective function.

By contrast, her husband had experienced life in US as an important milestone to his economic and

financial success. He perceived life in US as an opportunity for his family and refused to return to their

home country. Prior to the season of Jewish holidays associated with family and home, the wife started to

experience severe anxiety, which devolved into a psychotic breakdown. The content of her psychosis

focused on the anticipation of a terrorist attack at her workplace, fantasies of persecution by the patient’s

husband and grandiose delusion of saving the world by preventing a suicide bombing. In spite of severity

of her psychosis, the patient organized very quickly and came back to work within a few days.

Considering the severity of her psychosis and the quickness of her recovery, her clinical presentation

posed a puzzling question regarding the etiology of her psychotic breakdown to which we will return

later.

Full Name of G-D in the Bible and Rabbinical Sources

The reference to the full name of G-d (Tetragrammaton) representing the essence of the Divine appears

early in the Bible. From the beginning, this name is associated with revelation and profound sacred
meaning concealed even from the Patriarchs. This notion is emphasized in G-d’s revelation to Moses:

“And God [Elohim] spoke to Moses, and He said to him: ‘I am the Lord. And I appeared to Abraham, to

Isaac, and to Jacob, as El Shaddai, but by my name Hashem I did not make Myself known to them.”

(Exodus: 6, 2-3, According to Masoretic Text, JPS 1917 Edition). At first glance this statement sounds

paradoxical, as there are many statements in Genesis where G-d reveals himself to the Patriarchs by the

name Hashem ‫ י ה ו ה‬. For instance, Abraham uses that name while explaining to his servant that his

mission to find a wife for Isaac would be a blessed deed by "Hashem, the God of heaven, who took me

from my father's house." (Genesis: 24, 18, According to Masoretic Text, JPS 1917 Edition). Furthermore,

Jacob described his prophetic dream of angels ascending and descending the ladder as the

acknowledgement of the existence of Hashem. He reacts to the Divine revelation by proclaiming: “Surely,

Hashem is in its place, and I knew it not.” Rashi, the canonic medieval commentator to the Bible Text,

tried to resolve this problem by explaining that contrary to the Patriarchs to whom the Almighty revealed

his mere name, G-d revealed to Moses not the just His name but the essence, power, and attributes

associated with it. He told Moses: “I will make all my goodness pass before you and I shall invoke the

name of Hashem in Your presence.”(Exodus: 33, 18-19, According to Masoretic Text, JPS 1917 Edition).

Bible scholar Jim Chen wrote that: “G-d promises to reveal to Moses the secret of the power contained in

His name Hashem, the power of His attributes of invincibility, of bringing to fruition His every wish:

Hashem in the sense of ‘It will be’.” (Cohen, 2009)

The revelation to Moses came with the warning not to misuse G-d’s name and not to pronounce it

differently from the way it was written in the Scriptures. The following quotation vividly illustrated this:

“You shall not misuse the Name of Hashem Your G-D, for Hashem will not hold anyone guiltless who

misuses his name.”(Exodus: 20,7, According to Masoretic Text, JPS 1917 Edition ). Jewish tradition

insisted on pronouncing the letter ‘kaf” instead of letter “hey” when G-d’s name is used in colloquial

conversation. Various Babylonian Talmud sources point out that even currently the name of G-d is

written with ‘yud’ and ‘hey’ and pronounced with ‘kaf’ and ‘aleph’, however, in the future world the
written and the oral version will be same. During the period of the First and the Second Temple only the

priests at the Holy Temple were allowed to pronounce the Full name, during the blessings of the nation

and during the Yom Kippur atonement. The parameters of Yom Kippur services were strictly defined.

The High Priest spiritually prepared himself for an entire week, wore a special garment dedicated solely

to the Day of Atonement, and performed all of the rituals by himself. During this service he changed his

clothes five times and each time performed ritual immersion. The High Priest was allowed to say the Full

Name only at the special section of the Temple known as “The Holy of Holiness.” Even the High Priest

was not allowed to pronounce the Name in any other place. Talmud describes that the power and the risk

involved in pronouncing the Full Name were so high that after the successful completion of the day the

High Priest conducted a feast with his close circle to celebrate the fact that his service was accepted by

G-d and the nation was granted forgiveness. Babylonian Talmud (Tractate Yoma: Folio 52, page b)

mentions that, indeed, many High Priests died throughout the Yom Kippur Service especially during the

Second Temple when the spiritual level of the nation was much lower. Talmud clearly states that the

proclaiming of the Full Name by spiritually impure and unprepared High Priest could lead do a death.

Babylonian Talmud Tractate Avodah Zarah mentions the person who publically pronounced the Full

Name for the purpose of learning would be burnt. Rabbi Akivah states that those who spell the Full Name

would not inherit the Future World. (Tractate Avoda Zarah: Folio 18, page a). Hidden, the Holy Name

remains in the nation’s consciousness as the definitive manifestation of G-d’s ultimate power to protect

and to redeem. This is the state of awareness without knowing. The following quote from Isaiah

emphasized that the nation’s immediate salvation and the future redemption will happen as a result of

unlimited power of G-d’s name. The Name will guarantee the nation’s immediate salvation and future

redemption: “But now, this is what the LORD says - He who created you, Jacob, he who formed you,

Israel. Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name; you are mine. When you

pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep

over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze. For

I am the LORD your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior; I give Egypt for your ransom, Cush and
Seba in your stead.”(Isaiah 43,1, According to Masoretic Text, JPS Edition). Contrary to the

Tetragrammaton, G-d’s other names represent his attributes, the different aspects of Divine revelation. In

Midrash Tanhuma: “R. Abba b. Mammel said: God said to Moses: ‘Thou wished to know My name .

Well, I am called according to My work; sometimes I am called ‘Almighty God’, ‘Lord of Hosts’, ‘God’,

‘Lord’. When I am judging created beings, I am called “God”,’ and when I am waging war against the

wicked, I am called “Lord of Hosts”. When I suspend judgment for a man’s sins, I am called “El

Shadday.” (Midrash Tanhuma, Exodus 20).

The prayer as a substitute for Holy Temple

According to Jewish tradition, prayer became the main bridge between the human and Divine after the

destruction of Holy Temple, since priestly sacrifice and prophetic vision ceased to exist. The sages of

Talmud clearly articulated this transformation claiming: “What is the prayer? This is the sacrifice of the

heart” (Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Brachot: Folio 33,a). Therefore, the discourse of language (the

prayer) became the main tool mitigating the absence of Divine presence in the world. It closes the

gap between the individual and the Divine. Parallel to the Jewish religious practice, the language

mitigated between the unconscious and the subject allows the subject to access the “absence”, to access

the unconscious. Following Freud’s footsteps, Jacques Lacan noted that language stands at the heart of

the psychoanalytic experience (Lacan J. , On the Names-of-the-Father, 2013) as the main instrument of

cure. Lacan noted that on the surface, psychoanalysis could be easily perceived as magical thinking since

in both practices language is an instrument of deep transformation. However, this similarity is deceptive,

as the use of language is very different in psychoanalytic discourse. In 1957, Lacan gave his famous

lecture ‘The Instance of the Letter in the Unconscious, or Reason Since Freud (1957).’ In the opening

remark of this lecture, Lacan declared: “And how could a psychoanalyst of today not realize that the

speech is the key to that truth, when his whole experience must find speech alone, its instrumental, its

context, its material and even the background noise of the uncertainties. As our title suggests what the
psychoanalytic experience discovers in the unconsciousness is the whole structure of the language.”

(Lacan J. , The Agency of the Letter in the Unconsiousness or Reason Since Freud. , 1977)

Lacan perception of the unconscious and the Desire

Lacan argues that the concept of the unconscious was misunderstood by Freud’s followers. The

unconscious is not the set of instincts (not primordial and not instinctual) but primarily linguistic

phenomena. The unconscious is a basic knowledge, which is inaccessible to the subject contrary to the

conscious side of the mind. Nevertheless, even if inaccessible on the conscious level, this knowledge

remains part of the psychic experience of the subject. The unconscious is not a trace of sand on a beach

that disappears without a mark when the wind blows. It could be compared to the book in the library

stored according to the modern system of cataloging. Even if the book is handed to the specific library

reader, it remains part of the library catalog, the book remains in the system, and its place on the shelf

continues to be reserved. Even though the unconscious is not accessible to the subject, it has a profound

effect on him, it remains there, and its absence marks the experience of the subject. The subject continues

to experience the gap, the notion that something is missing. This notion could be compared to the

concealed Full Name of G-d. Even though the Full Name is completely concealed from human

knowledge, the person is aware of its absence and continues to experience longing for the revelation.

The formation of the subject’s unconscious is characterized by the presence of the subject’s desire. The

subject’s desire is a leading force of the subject’s experience; it could never be satisfied on the instinctual

level and always remains the desire for the Other. In his work in 1957- 1958 (Lacan J. , 1992) Lacan

crystallized the differences between the concepts of desire, demand and need. Need is a purely biological

instinct, the hunger that emerges according to the needs of the body, and abates completely when

satisfied. The infant born in helplessness is not able to satisfy his own needs, and hence depends on the

Other to help satisfy them. The infant expresses his needs vocally; they are articulated as demands,

requiring attention of the Other to satisfy them. The presence of the Other becomes an importance in

itself, as the Other symbolizes the Other’s Love. As Dylan Evans (Evans, 1996) pointed out in the
dictionary of Lacanian terminology: “the demand has the double function representing both the

articulation of a need and a demand for love. However, when the Other can provide the needs

satisfaction, the Other cannot provide the unconditional love, which the subject craves.” Even after the

need articulated in demand had been satisfied, the other facet of demand – the longing for unconditional

love remains unsatisfied. This unsatisfied remaining aspect was defined by Lacan as a desire. As the

subject’s desire is never fully satisfied, the subject caries the fundamental split between inaccessible and

accessible, between consciousness and unconsciousness, between the restriction of the law and the

driving power of the desire. For Lacan, the Desire is always the Desire for the Other in general, and the

primordial desire is always the desire for the Mother in particular. Initially the child is at the mercy of

the desire for the mother t thus, the entrance of the Father articulating the Law symbolizing the subject’s

resolution of the Oedipus complex.

The unconscious is structured like a language

As the object of Desire for the other is a leading force of the unconsciousness, Lacan was interested

in exploring the phenomenon of the unconsciousness as a particular structure. This was the famous

phrase that Lacan used at his XI th Seminar in 1950 (Lacan J. , The Seminars of Jacques Lacan. Book XI.

The Four Fundamentl Concepts of Psychoaanalysis, 1992) Starting in 1950 the notion of language

occupies the main position in Lacanian psychoanalytic thought. The English word language corresponds

to two French words: langue and langage.. The word “langue” in French is generally associated with the

specific language (English or French), while the word “langage” refers to the system of language in

general. As it was stated by Evans the langage becomes the single paradigm of all structures. The focal

point of Lacan’s interest would be the ‘language’, the language as a system and as a structure. As it was

stated by Evans (Evans, 1996) the language becomes a single paradigm of all structures. While

articulating his groundbreaking view, that the unconscious is structure as language, Lacan incorporates

the ideas of Ferdinand de Saussure, the renowned linguist of the beginning of 20th century, and the

philosopher Pierce main contributors to the semiotic approach to language. . Both of them viewed
language as a system composed of different elements. According to (Pierce, 1998), signs have no

intrinsic meaning and become signs by the rules of convention, by the meaning we attach to them.

Anything can be a sign, as long as it is interpreted as something signifying something, rather than itself.

Our capacity to interpret signs in general and linguistic signs (words) in particular is embedded in human

psyche and is largely unconscious. De Saussure offered a dyadic model of the sign: a signifier (the form

which the sign takes) and the signified (signifie), the concept represented by this particular sign. The

signified is not a real object linked to a sign, but a psychological entity corresponding to the object. For

example, the sign “open” consists of the signifier - the sound patterns of the letters that we hear as the

word “open” and the signified - the shop that is opened for customers. The same signifier, the word

“open” could refer to a different signified, for example, the arrow on a box, showing where the package

needs to be opened. This combination would create another pair of the signified and the signifier, thus

create a new sign. Saussure (Saussure, 2005) was focused on a linguistic sign (the word), which

represented the link between the concept and the sound pattern. Therefore, the signifier is a phonological

element of a sign, not the actual sound itself but the mental image of the sound. For Saussure the signifier

and the signified are equal elements and are mutually interdependent and create the whole notion of the

sign.

Sign

Signfier

Signfied

The above table (Chandler, 2014) demonstrates the connection between the signifier and the signified by

Saussure’s model. The horizontal line marking the two elements of the sign is referred as a ‘bar’.

According to Saussure, the signified is always preceding the signifier since the signified is a mental
concept existing in our mind before being expressed by language. While accepting De Saussure’s

structural and functional approach to language, Lacan opposed the expressive model of language and

asserted the priority of the signifier as a material element of language (acoustic patterns) over the

signified. Lacan emphasized that the signifier precedes the signified in logical order rather than

chronological order. Contrary to the sign, that always implies the existence of the referee, the signifiers

have no referee, and they are basic language constructs structured as unconsciousness. As Lacan pointed

out in his Seminar III (Lacan J. , 1993), “The unconscious is fundamentally woven, chained and meshed

by language. And not only the signifier plays a big role, as a signifier does, it plays a fundamental role…

what characteristic of the language is system of signifiers as such. “What would be a “signified” in

Lacan’s system? “Signified are not the things in their raw state already there, given in order open to a

meaning… Meaning (a signified) is a human discourse insofar as it always refers to another meaning.”

Therefore, the meaning is not a preexistent notion, but the relative construct, which always refers to

another signification. Thus the meaning (the signified) would slide underneath the process of the

signification. Lacan on-line (LacanOnLine, 2010)uses the example of the word “table.” From the first

glance, this signifier could relate to the simple material concept of a physical table. However, the signifier

“table” could refer to the variety of different significations: table as a graphic chart, table as material

things you put on, a verb “to table” referring to putting something forward, such as an amendment. The

discourse (the signified) is always in flux and is determined by the chain of the signifiers as it was

illustrated in the previous example. As there is no fixed connection between the signifier and the

signified, the signifiers would never fully express the signified, and the subject who is coming to the

preexisting discourse of the language would never achieve a full state of self-consciousness, and will

never know full truth about himself by the same notion of being a speaking creature, since the speech

reflects the fundamental division between the signifier and the signified. Lacan asserted that sometimes

the signified could be a subject himself. Drawing a theological parallel we can compare the fundamental

division of subject by language to the division of subject by his alienation from the Divine and his desire

to achieve full closeness to the Divine at the same time. The Full Name of Divine (the signified) is hidden
and cannot be processed or integrated by the subject. However, the subject could attain the sense of

closeness, could create the discourse of meanings by using the signifiers (metaphoric and metonymic

substitutions) to the Full Name as Almighty: The Place, The Judge, etc. Even though the human could

never attain the full closeness with the G-D, the desire to obtain this closeness is a driving force of human

relationships with the Divine.

How do the signifiers (as the main material elements of language) effect the formation of the

unconscious? Lacan viewed the semantic mechanism of language organization into metaphors and

metonyms as closely associated with the unconscious processes of substitution and displacement.

Metaphor is a stylistic figure of language based on a similarity or a substitution. It is a stylistic

mechanism that operates on the paradigmatic level of language, where one thing could substitute for the

other thing. (Wikipedia, 2012) Lacan associated the linguistic metaphor to the unconscious work of

condensation (unconscious process, where the dreamer puts different images together, minimalizing or

expanding them under one metaphoric cardinal point). Freud (Freud, 2010) illustrates the concept of

condensation by describing his dream about his patient Irma. Initially Freud dreamed about his patient

Irma “Irma injection”,. In his dream Freud had examined her closely for diphtheria or tuberculosis. He

noticed that she had membrane which alluded to his worries about his wife Martha who had thrombosis in

one of her pregnancies and was pregnant at that time with their sixth child. Irma’s image alluded to

Freud’s daughter Sophie as well who was sick at this time. Therefore, the unifying image of Irma

represented the intersection of many associative chains otherwise hidden (Lacan,1992). Lacan (Lacan

J. , 1977) viewed the process of metaphoric formation as the process of creating meaning where one

signifier substitutes for another one. Lacan asserted that metaphors occur at the point where “the sense is

emerging from the non-sense” Metaphoric formation of language is associated with crossing the bar of

repression from unconsciousness to consciousness.

Lacan associated metonymic formation of language with the process of displacement as it was formulated

in Freud’s groundbreaking work “Interpretation of Dreams.” In linguistics, the term metonymy is the
figure of speech in which a thing or a concept is called not by its own name but rather by the name of

something associated in meaning with this particular concept. For example, “Wall Street” is used as a

metonymy to represent the US economy, the term “Crown” represents the monarchy, and the term

“couch” is associated with psychoanalysis. In this process, the new term would replace and substitute for

the previous term. Freud in his “Interpretation of Dreams” viewed displacement as the primary process,

where the latent content (previously fundamental) has been replaced by the manifested content.

Therefore, the latent ideas could undergo the major shift, the “reverse of value” in Freudian terms, thus

the dream work could reflect the process of displacement. The major function of displacement is to

obscure the manifested level of previously significant material on the latent level. This displacement

happens by allusion, as it could be a sound, a remote associative link, etc. Freud’s own dream about

Garibaldi could be a vivid example of displacement. Freud described his dream of his father after his

death. The father appeared in a crowd standing on a chair. Freud also recalled him looking like Garibaldi

on his death bed. As it was accurately pointed out by L. Razinsky (Razinsky, 2013) the logical absurdity

of this dream in which a deceased person continues to be present, alive and politically active involves the

displacement of thought, incomprehensible to human consciousness – the transition from life to death.

The dream-thought registering the absurdity of the dream within the dream itself, served as a “censor”

separating inaccessible unconscious content from the manifested.

While linking the metonymic linguistic process to the primary process of displacement, Lacan viewed this

process as the movement of signifiers, where one signifier substitutes for another, thus this movement

creates the chain of signifiers where the initial signification could be veered off as the registration of

absurd thinking. That process happened in Freud’s dream where the unprocessed material of paternal

death transformed into the image of Garibaldi. Lacan viewed the metonymic process as the process where

the unconscious foils the censorship of consciousness and the repressed material remains repressed. Both

linguistic mechanisms (the metaphor and the metonymy) belong to the primary processes and are woven

into subject’s unconsciousness. Both operate without fixed link to a concept, to a signified. The subject,
by being the subject of language (langage as the system), is unconsciously ruled and governed by the

mechanisms of language as the structure.

The Symbolic Order Lacan (1953) wrote a manifesto “The Rome Discourse (Lacan J. , 1977) which

marked Lacan’s split with the psychoanalytic establishment and the creation of his own psychoanalytic

school. In “The Rome Discourse” Lacan introduced the concept of the three fundamental realms of

psychic reality: Imaginary, Symbolic, and Real. This concept would continue to be one of the most

fundamental concepts in the Lacanian School in the future. Contrary to Freud, the three domains of the

psychic are not topographical: they don’t occupy certain fields in the unconscious. Instead, they are

different conceptual categories reflecting a distinctively different psychoanalytic experience. As stated

by R Benvenuto & R. Kennedy (Benvenuto, 1986) they are structurally interdependent, even though they

are heterogeneous. The prototype of Imaginary Order is an infant in front of the mirror fascinated by

his own image; imaginary order includes the field of phantasies and images. It includes adult narcissistic

relationships as well. There is a linguistic dimension in imaginary order, and Lacan called it the “wall of

language.” Dylan Allan (1996) defines the Imaginary Order as “the language of deception, of illusion.”

In Imaginary Order, language distorts and deviates from the subject’s desire of the Other to the illusionary

self-image. The manic state of omnipotence related to the ideas of grandiosity belongs to the realm of

Imaginary Order. The Symbolic Order is the most important Order in psychoanalytic inquiry; it

represents cultural and social symbolism manifested by the chain of signifiers. The symbolic order is

completely opposed to the biological or genetic structure and is organized by certain laws of social order.

F Dosse (1997) pointed out that Levi-Strauss concept of social order, is characterized by the kinship

relationship of exchanging gifts. Lacan (Lacan, J…1977) viewed communication as a basic way of

exchanging gifts by the value of the words. Therefore, “the langue”, the main tool of communication, is

an essential component of the Symbolic Order. The unconsciousness, which is structured as a language

“un langage” , is an integral part of the Symbolic Order as well. The Symbolic Order is the realm of the

Law which regulates the desire in Oedipus complex, and is the realm of culture opposed to the imaginary
realm of nature. The Symbolic Order is the realm of absence, of lack, of compulsive repletion that goes

beyond the pleasure principle. Lacan called the Symbolic Order “the entire universe”. By being born into

civilization the subject is not only entering but unconsciously internalizing the Symbolic Order. The

experience of Desire for the Other and the alienation from the Other lay within the Symbolic Order as

well. Lacan critiqued the contemporary psychoanalytic schools for reducing psychoanalysis to the pure

“Imaginary Order” and ignoring the ultimate impact of the Symbolic Order into psychic reality. The Real

order, for Lacan, is the field outside of language; it is the realm that could not been defined by any

signifiers. Therefore, the Real Order is not only opposed to the imaginary but is located beyond the

symbolic. Lacan described the real as something that resists symbolization, has no opposition, and is

consistently present in the place. In reading Freud’s case history of little Hantz (Freud S. , 2002), the

birth of little Hantz’s sister would lie in the realm of the Real. Therefore, the real has a connotation of

material physicality, underlying the symbolic and the imaginary. As I previously pointed out, the Real,

the Symbolic, and the Imaginary are interdependent psychic structures. One could not fully evolve

without the other. Lacan illustrated this important idea using the topographical concept of Borromean

knot. The knot consists of three or more rings, and its main quality could be explained as following: if

one ring is cut, the whole structure falls apart and dissolves. The unravelling of the Borromean knot

could cause psychosis. (Lacan J. , 1993)

 Borromean knot

Imaginary Real

Symbolic

The Name –of- the-Father

On his afterwards remarks to Lacan’s book On the Names-of-the Father J Miller (Miller, 2013) asserted:

“Name-of-the-Father ties together the Symbolic, the Imaginary and connect them to Real in a three part

knot.” Lacan viewed the concept Name of the Father as an instrumental in subject’s successful

resolution of Oedipal struggle and thus entering into the realm of Law and Civilization where the Real,

the Imaginary and the Symbolic are tight together and interconnected.

The question of paternity was vital for Lacan’s psychoanalytic inquiry. He stated that the question: “Who

is a father” creates a main thread in Freud’s work as well. He criticized object-relations theory, which,

focused solely on infant-mother dyadic relationship, excluded paternity from psychoanalytic exploration.

While elaborating on the importance of the oedipal complex, Lacan stressed the dual conflicted function

of paternity: the function of prohibition and the function of protection. The father, according to Lacan, is

also a mediator, who intervenes into the imaginary dyadic relationship between the mother and the child.

The father is not a pure competitor for maternal love, but more a representation of Law and Social Order

crucial for a child’s successful oedipal resolution allowing the child to enter into the realm of Civilization.
For Lacan, paternity is a complex concept which lies in the realms of Real, Imaginary and Symbolic

orders.

The main function of the real father is to be the agent of symbolic castration. According to Lacan,

the real father is not the object who is perceived to be a child’s biological father. The real father is instead

more a linguistic than a biological function. He is an object carrying a paternal function in the family.

His main function is to perform the symbolic castration, which spares the child from persistent anxiety

and allows the normal development of the psychic. Evans (Evans, 1996) interprets the Lacanian notion of

castration as the realization that the imaginary object (the idealized image of the mother) has a lack, that

the child would never be able to satisfy maternal desire (literally he could not fully represent a symbolic

phallic object for the mother). In this way the child unconsciously realized that he can’t be the mother’s

phallic object (the father). The child gives up those attempts by submitting himself to the principles of

reality. Lacan states that the acceptance of symbolic castration marks the successful resolution of Oedipal

Complex. The physical presence or absence of a real paternal object is not a guarantee of successful

Oedipal resolution. Thus, like in Freud’s (Freud S. , 2002) example of little Hantz the physical paternal

object could be there and the child is still not able to experience the symbolic castration, while

conversely, the child could successfully experience the symbolic castration even when the father is not

physically present at home. (Evans, 1996).

The Imaginary Father is an imago, the compound image of all imaginary features that the subject builds

around the father figure. The imaginary father could be an ideal or an evil father, a primordial father of a

primitive tribe, or the fearful figure who imposes the incest taboo. In all cases, the imaginary father is an

all-powerful figure correlating with the traditional perception of G-d as an omnipotent figure.

The Symbolic Father: The Concept of Symbolic Father is one of the most complex and crucial concepts

of Lacanian psychoanalysis. Contrary to the Real and Imaginary Father, the Symbolic Father is a

position situated in Symbolic Order. His function belongs to the realm of unconscious. His function is to
distinguish between the imaginary order of nature and the symbolic order of culture. He imposes the Law

and regulates the Desire in Oedipal complex. Even though the Symbolic Father is not a subject, still the

subject may occupy this position by executing the paternal function in Real, and even this intervention

remains veiled and disguised. He is mostly mediating the Discourse of the Mother, by putting frame and

limits to the imaginary omnipotent relationship between the child and the mother and creating a symbolic

distance between them. The symbolic distance allows the syntheses of Desire and Law on a different

level. This is reminiscent of the famous Hegel analogy of thesis, antithesis and synthesis. The castrating

acceptance of the sovereignty of the Law of the Father could guarantee that the child would find a

reasonable substitution for his loss of the ultimate love object. However, the loss would never be fully

substituted, and the object would always carry the fundament lack and split between the need, the demand

and the desire. The existential split of the subject and the ability to substitute infantile imaginary

identifications of “imaginary ego” to more mature “ego ideal” will be, according to Lacan, the common

path of normal development. The ego ideal is the identification with something that could not be touched,

seen, or experienced in the realm of the Real: the words, the notion of language as it represents Law, and

the normative ways of social organization. By entering the realm of language of a particular culture the

subject is internalizing the function of the Symbolic Father.

Name-of-the-Father

In his introductory words to Lacan’s lecture “On –the Names- of the- Father” Jacques Miller (Miller,

2013) wrote: “What an astonishing success the Name-of the Father has had. Everyone finds something in

it. Who is one’s father is not immediately obvious, hardly being visible for the naked eye? Paternity is

established first and foremost for one’s culture…”

Initially, when Lacan introduced the concept “name of the father” he mostly meant the “symbolic father”,

the function executing the symbolic castration limiting the mother desire. He played on homophony
between ‘le nom du pére’ (the name of the1father) and le ‘non” du pére’ (no of the father) to emphasize

the prohibitive and legislative function of the father. In his later work Lacan started to capitalize the term

Name-of-the-Father, added hyphenation, and articulated the meaning more precisely. According to the

latest development of Lacan’s thought, Name- of- the-Father is a fundamental signifier that allows the

normal process of signification. This initial signifier (veiled) creates subject identity (place and function

in culture) and signifies the initial oedipal prohibition ‘non due pere’ ‘no’ to incest. Lacan viewed the

paternal metaphor as a main signifier. Lacan quoted the Viktor Hugo poem Boaz Endormi, where the

poet retells the famous Biblical story of Boaz and Ruth. This poem serves as an illustration of the

Lacanian notion that paternity is of primary signification. While Ruth is sleeping at Boaz’s feet, Boaz

dreams that a tree grows from his stomach. The poet writes: “his sheaves were neither miserly nor

spiteful. ” In this poem Hugo metaphorically substituted Boaz and ‘sheaf”. Lacan called this process

signification. The word “sheaf” gives new meaning to the image of Boaz as the pro-creator of a royal

dynasty. Therefore, paternity is not only the theme of this poem but is structured within the metaphor

itself. Following the steps of Jewish tradition we could create an analogy between the Primary Signifier

and the G-d whose Full name is hidden and non-pronounced. As the presence of the Symbolic Father

(even hidden behind the Symbolic Mother) is an essential function in subject development, similarly the

notion of Hidden Divine Name is an essential part of the individual and collective desire to internalize the

concept of G-d and to seek relationship with G-d as the Other. Lacan viewed the proper primary

signification as an essential condition to the continuation of the chain of signifiers allowing full entrance

of the subject into the symbolic meaning of language. Similarly, the various names of G-d represent the

metonymic and metaphoric substitution for the Tetragrammaton allowing the creation of a symbolic

relationship between the subject and the Divine. Some of those substitutions are metonymic (Right Hand,

the Place) and some are metaphoric (Almighty, The Judge, the Merciful…). In 1963, Lacan gave a talk

recently published (Lacan J. , On the Names-of-the-Father, 2013) in which he acknowledged and

recognized the theological notion of the substitution of the Divine Name as the core concept allowing the

transformative experience between G-d and Abraham. In this lecture Lacan brought the example of the

binding of Itzhak as a focal point of this transformative experience. After the binding, the Divine Desire

for the Patriarchs would be carried not in human physical sacrifice but in substitute action of a covenant

of the world (brit milah). Lacan saw this development as a parallel to the creation of the chain of

signifiers deriving from the primary signifier and substituting it. Lacan called this process development

of the substitution of the primarily paternal metaphor - Names-of-the-Father. He introduced this concept

only once, in his final lecture before he was excommunicated from the international psychoanalytic

community.

The phenome of psychosis

Contrary to Freud, who approached unconsciousness via neurosis, Lacan approached unconsciousness

via psychosis. For Lacan, psychosis is not a combination of symptoms but the underlying structure of

psychic reality. The subject who has this structure did not enter the Symbolic Order and had a serious

disorder regarding the place of the Other. The lack of symbolization creates the gap, that being replaced

by the Imaginary Order leading to the various distortions in the Real Order such as voices and

hallucinations. Prior to entering the psychoanalytic world in early 30s, Lacan wrote his doctoral

dissertation, where he focused on understanding a psychotic delusional patient named Aimée who tried to

stab the famous actress Huguette Duflos (Benvenuto, 1986). Lacan argued that by trying to murder the

actress, the patient was trying to “kill” some parts of herself, so she herself was the object of punishment.

In this case the patient’s self-image lay completely outside of her body. This patient not only lost the

connection with reality, but substituted it with a different reality. Her relationship to the world, her

intentions and her action, were mediated by her delusions. For Lacan (Lacan J. , 1993) the most
important part of understanding psychotic phenomena is not the inquiry of the lost connection to the

reality, but psychoanalytic examination of the alternative reality.

We would like to look a little closer at the ways in which the gap in Symbolic Order affects psychosis.

The psychotic did not enter the field of language, as his unconsciousness is present but not functional.

Thus the psychotic’s speech is not governed by laws of the metonymy and the metaphor. The speech of

the psychotic lacks metaphorical realms. It is full of mumbling words, unclear references, and it sounds

like there is not proper metaphoric structure to anchor the psychotic’s speech. This gap reflects the fact

that the psychotic subject didn’t internalize “the paternal metaphor” and didn’t go through the process of

symbolic castration, where the symbolic father has the invisible but crucial function to mediate the Desire

by the Law. In a regular case the Symbolic Father plays a fundamental but non-visible role in subject

development. However, in psychosis the Name-of-the-Father is foreclosed, the subject is not able to

internalize it; it leaves the hole in symbolic order that would never be filled. As Lacan said: “What was

abolished internally, returned from without…..” (Lacan J. , 1993). The case of Judge Schreber, initially

analyzed by Freud and revisited by Lacan, provides a vivid illustration of the Lacanian concept of

Foreclosure of Name-of-the Father. Lacan revisited the case of the psychosis of Judge Schreber, who

wrote the detailed description of his illness himself. The case of Judge Schreber is a fascinating account

of the Dresden Appeal Court Judge, who had a mental breakdown, came back to the bench as a chief

Judge of Dresden, suffered a severe anxiety attack, tried to commit suicide, and was readmitted to Leipzig

psychiatric facility. As part of his delusional psychosis, he was convinced that he needed to transform into

a woman to save the world. He claimed he was G-d’s partner and mate who could help G-d in the mission

of redemption. He also announced that the stars had the capacity to speak to him in human language.

Lacan (Lacan J. , 1993) stated that his promotion to the position of a Chief Judge and his inability to

become a father were the triggers to his second nervous breakdown and the subsequent admission to the

Leipzig Clinic. Lacan viewed the themes of Judge Shreber’s psychosis (Shreber, 1955), such as a desire

to transform into a woman and to become G-d’s mate, as significant evidences to the nature of psychosis:
the inability to process and to integrate the symbolic castration (the desire to become a women) and the

failure of processing paternal metaphor (failure to become a biological father and failure to perform a

symbolic paternal function associated with the position of the Supreme Judge.) As a result, Daniel

Schreber was not able to integrate the Name-of the Father and to place it at the field of the other. The

Name-of-the-Father was foreclosed and the Imaginary Order, where Judge Schreber communicated with

G-d, prevailed in his psychic reality followed by special linguistic expression of Divine in the realm of the

Real.

Clinical Implication

For Lacan, a psychotic structure is a basic psychic structure of the subject. It may or may not be triggered

in a subject’s life. The foreclosure of Name-of-the-Father is a psychotic defense mechanism, when

unprocessed unconscious material is not buried into the unconscious but expelled from the

unconsciousness to the external reality. This process could cause a psychotic breakdown for the subject

who initially had a latent psychotic structure without the manifested symptoms of psychosis. In the case

of Daniel Schreber, the appointment to the position of Supreme Judge caused the breakdown of

manifested psychotic symptoms for someone who had a latent psychotic structure beforehand.

The primary author found that Lacan’s innovative ideas on psychosis could significantly alter the ways of

viewing and working with patients in her clinical practice. We want to discuss one clinical vignette to

illustrate the clinical contributions of Lacanian ideas to her clinical work.

As we mentioned earlier the patient of the primary author was hospitalized in a locked unit due to a

severe psychotic outbreak. After a brief anti-psychotic treatment, she compensated quickly and came back

from the hospital directly to the work place.

Historically, the patient had unexpectedly lost her father at age thirteen, and after his death the family

experienced severe financial and psychological difficulties, followed by the total inability of her mother

to function. In response to this loss the patient took the semi-maternal role in the family, attending to all
the needs of her little sister. During the first year following the father’s death, her mother performed the

ceremony of intensive mourning forcing the patient to attend the cemetery every weekend. However, at

age 18, when the patient, along with her mother and siblings, relocated from her native country of Israel,

the theme of the father’s death transformed into an unspoken taboo between my patient, her mother, and

her siblings. They stopped talking about it and never commemorated Yor-Tzait (the traditional

commemoration of the paternal death). Later after relocation to Israel, 2she immediately got married to

her husband who became a substitute father figure to the patient by taking care of her financial, social,

and emotional needs. She had mentioned in the session that if her father would be alive he would not

allow my patient to marry so early; however after he died the situation had changed Patient has

expressed a sense of longing for parental protection and acknowledged that her husband was providing

her with that sense until their relocation to the US. It looks like that her husband has unconsciously

internalized this function, and started to view himself as a main caretaker and protector as well. He

reported going to the grave of his wife’s father and acknowledging his sense of gratitude to him and

reassured that he will take care for his daughter atient viewed relocation to US as a dramatic event. She

felt uprooted and socially isolated, and experienced tremendous difficulties in adjusting to American

culture. Since the relocation to the US was initiated by her husband as a search of better financial

opportunities, his protective paternal function ceased to exist. The patient experienced foreclosure of

Name-of-the Father followed by severe psychotic breakdown. The image of her husband as her main

persecutor was the primary image in her psychotic narrative. After her discharge from the psychiatric

hospital, treatment has focused on expanding the realm of the Symbolic Order. The patient broke the

family taboo regarding her father’s death and started to articulate the symbolic aspects of her father’s

death in her life: the fundamental vulnerability, the sense of unsafety, and the unconscious search for the

substitute paternal figure. She was able to articulate the ways of approaching her husband as a substitute

paternal figure. She clearly pointed out that her husband gave her the sense of safety and protection, the
sense she lost completely since her father’s death. The patient acknowledged having a lot of fantasies of

protection and taking care as a young teen and was able to articulate that her husband had this protective

function in her fantasies prior to relocation to US.

Conclusion

In Lacan’s later work, the Name-of-the-Father became one of the main concepts in Lacanian

psychoanalysis. He viewed it as a Borromean knot (The mutual area, where the Real, the Imaginary and

the Symbolic Order are tied together) as we demonstrated in the graph. The foreclosure of Name-of-the-

Father causes the rupture of the knot of where the Real, the Imaginary, and the Symbolic are discontinued

and no longer are woven together. .

We draw an analogy between the experiences of the revelation of the Full Name of G-d to the Foreclosure

of the Name-of-the-Father. The Jewish Tradition approaches the experience of Divine Revelation as the

practice of extreme spiritual intensity. Talmudic sources described the allegory of four famous Sages that

entered “Pardes” (the allegorical name of the advanced level of mystical revelation.) The source depicted

that this experience had altered their lives: one of them died, another one became insane, one became a

heretic, and only one (Rabbi Akiva) entered with peace and exited with peace (Talmud B. , Tractate

Hagiga: Folio 14, 1994-1995) Lacan approached the Name-of-the-Father not only as a key concept in his

psychoanalytical teaching but as a mystical notion that yet needed to be concealed from his audience.

During his last open seminar on this topic, which was followed by his excommunication from the

International Psychoanalytic Association, Lacan hinted to the audience that the time had not come yet to

reveal all the hidden aspects of Name-of-the-Father. He drove the analogy between the Name-of-the-

Father and all paternal metaphors ending with the metaphor of G-d (Him, Whose Name is not known…).

At the same lecture he declared that it was G-d in “front of him Freud laid his pen in final analyses,” since
paternity and paternal metaphor was the main theme of Freud’s psychoanalytic inquiry. (Lacan J. , On the

Names-of-the-Father, 2013)

Name-of-the-Father inserted the Divine into the core of psychoanalytic practice. As Jacques Miller wrote

in his introduction to Lacan’s last lecture, “On the Names –of- the Father”, “What an astonishing success

the Name-of the-Father has had. Everyone finds something in it. It is not pagan, for it’s found in the

Bible. He, who speaks from the burning bush, says of himself that he doesn’t have one name. In other

words, the father has no Proper name; it is not the figure of speech, but rather a function. What is its

function? The religious function of tying things together the signifier, and the signified, the law and the

desire, mind and body. In short the symbolic and the imaginary. Yes, these three become tied to the Real

in a three part knot. .….” (Lacan J. , On the Names-of-the-Father, 2013). In this paper we have tried to

create our own ‘Borromean knot’ - our understanding of Lacanian psychoanalytic inquiry regarding the

desire and the unconsciousness. We looked into the ways the linguistic structure of the unconscious as the

consistent chain of signifiers, resembling Freudian condensation and replacement, determined the

experience of the subject from the day of birth. We explored how the linguistic structure of the

unconscious affected the Lacanian concept of Real, Imaginary and Symbolic. All three dimensions are

focal points in the Lacanian construct of paternity. We tried to articulate this complexity by paying

special attention to the place of the Symbolic Father in psychic structure in normal development and by

exploring the state of psychosis as a phenomenon characterized by the absence of the Symbolic Father.

We looked closely at the concept of foreclosure of the-Name-of-the-Father as a unique psychic reaction

of the subject with psychotic structure that could cause the breakout of manifested psychotic symptoms.

We used the theological approach of Jewish tradition and Lacan’s own reminiscences of Jewish texts to

deepen the understanding of those complex concepts. The clinical case in our presentation from Freud’s

and Lacan’s patients illustrated that Lacanian ideas have a potential for wide clinical application. The

primary author’s clinical vignette demonstrated that a Lacanian approach to the Foreclosure of Name-of-

the-Father could radically change the case conceptualization and further treatment.
Our Sages said: “The day is short, and the work is extensive.” (Mishna, 1998) . Paraphrasing the saying

of our Sages we can say that there is still an extensive amount of work that needs to be done to understand

Lacan both in the realm of his philosophical ideas and in realm of the clinical field.

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