engineering

Lack (psychoanalysis)

Lack (psychoanalysis) is a engineering topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Lack (psychoanalysis) rather than just read about it. In short: In Jacques Lacan's psychoanalytic philosophy, lack (French: manque) is a concept that is always related to desire. In his seminar Le transfert (1960–61) he states that lack is what causes desire to arise.

Key takeaways

Lack (psychoanalysis) belongs to engineering; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Lack (psychoanalysis) to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Lack (psychoanalysis) from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

In Jacques Lacan's psychoanalytic philosophy, lack (French: manque) is a concept that is always related to desire. In his seminar Le transfert (1960–61) he states that lack is what causes desire to arise.

Types of lack Lacan first designated a lack of being: what is desired is being itself. "Desire is a relation to being to lack. The lack is the lack of being properly speaking. It is not the lack of this or that, but lack of being whereby the being exists" (Seminar: The Ego in Freud's Theory and in the Technique of Psychoanalysis). In "The Direction of the Treatment and the Principles of Its Power" (Écrits) Lacan argues that desire is the metonymy of the lack of being (manque à être): the subject's lack of being is at the heart of the analytic experience and the very field in which the neurotic's passion is deployed. In "Guiding Remarks for a Convention on Feminine Sexuality" Lacan contrasts the lack of being related to desire with the lack of having (manque à avoir) which he relates to demand. Starting in his seminar La relation d'objet, Lacan distinguishes between three kinds of lack, according to the nature of the object which is lacking. The first one is Symbolic Castration and its object related is the Imaginary Phallus; the second one is Imaginary Frustration and its object related is the Real Breast; the third kind of lack is Real Privation and its object related is the Symbolic Phallus. The three corresponding agents are the Real Father, the Symbolic Mother, and the Imaginary Father. Of these three forms of lack, castration is the most important from the perspective of the cure. It is in La relation d'objet that Lacan introduces the algebraic symbol for the barred Other, and lack comes to designate the lack of the signifier in the Other. Then the relation of the subject to the lack of the signifier in the Other, designates the signifier of a lack in the Other. No matter how many signifiers one adds to the signifying chain, the chain is always incomplete, it always lacks the signifier that could complete it. This missing signifier is then constitutive of the subject.

Lack of phallus The symbolic version of the phallus, a phallic symbol is meant to represent male generative powers. According to Sigmund Freud's theory of psychoanalysis, while males possess a penis, no one can possess the symbolic phallus. Jacques Lacan's Écrits includes an essay titled The Signification of the Phallus which articulates the difference between "being" and "having" the phallus. Men are positioned as men insofar as they are seen to have the phallus. Women, not having the phallus, are seen to "be" the phallus. The symbolic phallus is the concept of being the ultimate man, and having this is compared to having the divine gift of God. In Gender Trouble (1990), Judith Butler explores Freud's and Lacan's discussions of the symbolic phallus by pointing out the connection between the phallus and the penis. They write, "The law requires conformity to its own notion of 'nature'. It gains its legitimacy through the binary and asymmetrical naturalization of bodies in which the phallus, though clearly not identical to the penis, deploys the penis as its naturalized instrument and sign" (135). In Bodies that Matter, they further explore the possibilities for the phallus in their discussion of the lesbian phallus. If, as they note, Freud enumerates a set of analogies and substitutions that rhetorically affirm the fundamental transferability of the phallus from the penis elsewhere, then any number of other things might come to stand in for the phallus (62).

Criticism In Anti-Oedipus, Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari postulate that desire does not arise from lack, but rather is a productive force (desiring-production) in itself.

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Lack (psychoanalysis)

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Lack (psychoanalysis) claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In engineering, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Lack (psychoanalysis) before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Lack (psychoanalysis) ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Lack (psychoanalysis)

In research: Lack (psychoanalysis) appears in engineering research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Lack (psychoanalysis) in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Lack (psychoanalysis) is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Jacques Lacan, Philosophy of sexuality, Post-structuralism, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Lack (psychoanalysis) outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Lack (psychoanalysis) in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Lack (psychoanalysis) means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Lack (psychoanalysis) out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Lack (psychoanalysis) in simple terms?

Why does Lack (psychoanalysis) matter?

Because it connects several engineering ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Lack (psychoanalysis)?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Lack (psychoanalysis).