The Image of a Voice THE MIRROR STAGE OF JACQUES LACAN Angelos Tsialides Scribe of the Letterjt]has| Been since forever that man as a speaking subject has used metaphors|to describe the world, Jacques Lacan is the first to bring this Fact into 2\psychoanalytic context, noting that this very metaphorization Jdraws)reference from another metaphor that is primordial, where the individual takes his mirror, image as a representation of his being. Man is|granted access to his body through his mirror “reflection that he mistakes a as his own self, which means that the speaking being defines themselves by what characterises that image. The mirror stage is about the eonstitutidn of oneself that takes place through the process where the subject attempts to identify with the locus from which the image receives its description, This book illustrates the mirror stage of Jacques Lacan not only in the mhetaphorical sense of the word, but also literally: Plurality of illustrations supports the text that is full of examples from everyday life, popular stories {mythology and psychoanalytic cases. The Image of a Voice aXidresses not only the audience that desires to be introduced to the field of Lacanian psychoanalysis, but also those whose desire has led them to the'path of psychoanalytic formation, whether practicing analysts or not. JEY sevive of tre Letter 91781794 || 776869‘The Image of « Voice Copyright © 2021 Angelos Tsialides All rights reserved. No part of this text can be reproduced, stored ina retrieval system or transmitter in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical or photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior written permission of the author. To request permissions, contact the author at lacanianletter@gmail.com Paperback ISBN: 978-1-7947-7686-9 First paperback edition December 2021 Book designed by Angelos Tsialides Cover art and illustrations by Stella Violari Published by Scribe of the Letter Publications LL LimassolContents Preface Acknowledgements Body Fragment 1 Introducing the Looking-Glass: The Imaginary Relation Fragment IT Mediation: The Symbolic Relation Fragment III A Body defined by the Signifier Fragment IV Transitivism Fragment V Inversion Fragment VI The Threshold of the Visible World Fragment VII Das Unheimliche and the Fragmented Body Fragment VIL Beauty, Immortality, Death vii 7 35 49 63 n 81 99Fragment IX Enjoyment, Truth, Desire Fragment X Relation = Participation Fragment XI Synopsis: Half-a-Conclusion Exodos Appendix The Case of Steve Index About vi 109 123 131 149 161 7 183‘The Image of a Voice 7 Identifying with the mirror image of the wholeness and the totality of the body, the infant overcomes the sense of a fragmented body’ of its motor incoordination. The child, through the image, overcomes any support of his deficiency to walk, stand, coordinate the movement of his body parts. He overcomes his deficiency in a jubilant activity. The mirror image gives form to the body, a Gestalt’. Identification with the image as the child’s first identity reveals a central lack of identity, a lack of being (manque d étre)’. This leads to the constitution of self-identity by something external: the constitution of self, according to the image of another (an other). Darwin, in his observations, notices that every time his child is called by its name, the child looks in the mirror. = Wid. “Ibid. Jacques Lacan, The Ego in Freud’s Theory and in the Technique of Psychoanalysis, The Seminar of Jacques Lacan Book If, Ed. Jacques-Alain Miller, Transl, Syivana Tomaselli, New York: W.W. Norton & Co, 1991, Session XVIII, p.223.‘The Image of a Voice 29 The analyst's intervention on this point got her admitting that she has always considered her hands to be the weakest part of her body in every physical activity. She even encountered difficulties training in the gym because of that. ‘The analysand defined herself, i.e. her whole body, by this very part that related her to her mOther, the hand, which was operating both in literal and in metaphorical ways. Sigmund Freud, in one of his essays, talks about the disturbance of functions of the body observed in hypnosis. He mentions, as an example, a case whereby subjects are put into a hypnotic state and it is suggested to them that they are blind in one eye, leading them to behave like they are indeed unable to see from one eye although no organic causes of blindness are present. * Sigmund Freud, The prrchoanalytc view of psychogenic disturbance of vision (1910).‘The Image of a Voice 41 I DESCRIBE AND THUS FORM. MYSELF IN THE WAY THE OTHER DESCRIBES ME. I THUS FORM MYSELF BEFORE MY EYES - I SEE MYSELF - IN THE WAY I ASSUME THAT THE OTHER SEES ME.56 Fragment IV: Transitivism, This is an imaginary relation (a relationship in the imaginary register), where the similar other, the small other, takes the form a double. The other with whom I identify, the other that is the imaginary form of ‘mastering myself, the ideal ego, is someone that is always one step ahead, the one that I will never be. The other is my double that takes my place, that takes the enjoyment from me, enjoying the place where I should be. In the fairy tale of Snow White, the Evil Queen’s mirror displays the image of the best possible version of herself, her ideal ego, her double that is taking away her enjoyment by being ‘the most beautiful’: The Evil Queen’s double is Snow White.‘The Image of a Voice 15 One's reality is a false reality: the relevance of descriptions such as the binary terms good and bad, big and small, fast and slow etc. are nothing but mere reflections of one another, meaning that one can be defined only in relation to the other qua its mirror image. They correspond to one’s subjective perception of the world that is mis-recognised through their own ego as formed by the ideal image of the Other. As such, the mirror image that constitutes the subject’s ego becomes the “threshold of the visible world”, © Jacques Lacan, “The Mirror Stage as Formative ofthe I Function as Revealed in Psychoanalytic experience’, Frits, Transl Bruce Fink, New York: W.W. Norton & Co, 2006, p.77Fragment VII Das Unheimliche and the Fragmented Body (a fragmented reality] Freud, in his essay Das Unheimliche®, describes the uncanny experience of encountering something that should have remained hidden. An example he gives is a common wish of children to see their toys animate, becoming alive. It is a wish that one represses when their perception of reality is established by growing up, and it would be unheimlich if in their adulthood they see a toy come to life. Emphasising that what is encountered as unheimlich had once been heimlich, friendly, homey and most intimate, Freud explains that as soon as it is made secret and inaccessible from the self, the way it returns to the surface is in the form an uncanny sensation, that is to say an unfriendly, eerie and frightening experience. © Sigmund Freud, The Uncanny (1919).152 Exodos ‘The Heav(enl)y Reward It is a fact that setting a goal for oneself to aim at, produces the corresponding mental coordinates that navigate their actions to its achievement and a motive that provides orientation for the work in progress. Yet why is it so common that people lose themselves in the course of this work, usually as a sense of failure and disappointment, or even as what has been named burnout over the last few years? Multiple motivational quotes are then invocated to assist the suffering person, by farther encouraging their work... and their life whose definition has become identical to the word work: “Never give up!” “The only barrier is You!” “Believe in yourself!” “Become a better You!” etc. only for one to come across the same affects that sooner or later happen to re-emerge, sometimes even more powerfully. Our life experience enlightens us with all the answers from which we draw natural conclusions: Why would there be a burnout if not by some forced labour? And why would there be any disappointment at all, if not due to a failed expectation of being rewarded by our efforts? It is of course inevitable that one demands a reward for their efforts if what they do is something they don’t want to, namely, something they are forced to do. ‘We may hence well justify that the goal which has initially been set and which directs the subject’s actions has never truly been something the subject themselves desired, or at least not on their own terms. And what's more, that once the subjects led to the belief that this is their own desire, then the illusion is formed that they like working for it!‘The Image of a Voice 153 ‘This is what happens when the goal is based on some sort of idealisation, that is to say a formed ideal image of myself, a future perfect version of me, the one I would like to be and thus I am currently not. “I am not’, signifies that one is negated when they identify with that image: losing any sort of presence in their life by being absorbed into the perfection of the image of a future self. Trying to become a better version of oneself towards ideality means that the ideal image only motivates work that comes with the promise of some payback, i.e. to be rewarded with something that will complete their image of perfection. Within that discourse there is anticipation that one will be able to get enjoyment once the requirements of the ideal are fulfilled. Consequently, if the reward is not received, the body suffers because the promised object of payback is not received and the image remains incomplete, in other words, fragmented. But isn’t it an oxymoron that the body is experienced as heavy when a part is missing? Why does this happen? Because one is unable to perceive the whole operation of the ideal, namely, that what is experienced as missing from one’s body is not the lack of any anticipated object but the excess of labour itself, i.e. the expended effort towards the ideal; it is precisely because of this effort that one demands compensation. The subject is caught in a vicious circle, stemming from the fact that an ideal image is introjected as one’s true identity. Vicissitudes come by definition in one's life once the establishment of the ideal image takes place.154 Exodos How could all this be simplified more, if not by saying that one demands payment only when working for someone other than themselves! The subject is so consumed and absorbed in this process, that in the statement “I am doing this for myself”, the self does not even refer to themselves as a subject but to how they are objectified for some Other who nominates and thus chooses the ideal that the subject takes as their identity: this is precisely the heaviness in taking (i.e. taking the identity of the ideal) which produces the effect of an image of the body that is missing something. As such, the ideal represents the Other incarnating the ‘law’ or ‘rules’ that conduct (a great synonym for order) the subject's direction of work, and from whom the reward is demanded. Psychoanalyst Petros Patounas describes true desire as “asking nothing ‘from no one”. Indeed, working towards one’s own desire does not have any reward as its aim, that is to say any object that would complete their body and bring enjoyment, because the very act of working is what makes heaven and defines the body (Patounas calls this mode of being ErgOn). It is an enjoyment independent of the Other. The expectation of a reward only comes when someone acts according to rules for trade, whereby a certain measure is applied as a unit of exchange that defines the fair compensation for the subject's sacrifice. A sacrifice of what? That of their desire: The subject demands a reward as compensation for giving up their own desire. This of course shouldn’t be misinterpreted as “I do not give, because I don’t want to get anything back from anyone”, because itis still caught up in the discourse of fair exchange: “I don’t give” is in this case related to “I don’t get... a fair exchange”,‘The Image of a Voice 155 And, if this is pushed to an extreme, if one declares that something they want is of their own desire but they do nothing to achieve it, or find all sorts of excuses while blaming others, then not only is it not their desire, because blaming others means they ask others for something, but they also demand to be instantly rewarded for exchanging their subjectivity with the idealised image they believe they want. An honourable statement against the anticipation of life in a future self, would be something that one usually hears in the aforesaid motivational quotes, but which is mostly derived from eastern thought, that one should live in the present. There is a nice play on words here whereby people in their ideal and perfect image lose their present, in both its meanings: the present as temporal and the present as gift. Gift is a nice word for the reward itself, the gift of life. Yet, this quote is often misinterpreted into another idealisation whereby one may short-circuit the ideal image into a demand to acquire absolute enjoyment now as if there is no tomorrow, which is to say that everything will end. What an ideal way to reach a goal! True present is timeless, a never ending one. Itisn't hard for someone to distinguish what is aligned with their desire from that which is caught up in an ideal, because the experience of their effects on the body speaks for itself: Desire is about aligning one’s actions to whatever supports their breath just by doing it, thatiis to say, their very act is their own breath. For example, if there is any sort of pressure in helping or serving a fellow person, then there is a hidden expectation of respect and reward, even if this reward is expected from the justice of a God.156 Exodos Christian tradition in its own terms uses the word Theosis (@gwatx) to describe the destination of all humans, the ultimate goal, whereby one becomes a god. This is a goal beyond any idealisation, because one can only become a god when their deeds do not demand any reward from (any form of) God. And it is certain at this point that the original sin, i.e. eating the fruit that would make one a god, has been from the beginning all about aiming at the deification of oneself that has nothing to do with “Theosis’ ~ a magnificent word for ‘Desire’ -, but with the assimilation of the object that would complete one's ideal image to perfection. opm, Angelos Tsialides va ae % Limassol, 16 March 2021 an - > tee for Tsialides' blog) : ae