Lacanian Identification

This chapter introduces the main concepts that characterize the Lacanian ‘mirror stage’: the difference between imago and image, the constitution of the ego as founded in a misrecognition and the inherent disjoint produced by the subject between the ego and its body. It also comments on the importance of the Freudian erotogenic zones, and the dysfunctional relation, for psychoanalysis, between need, satisfaction and desire. Finally, the three main Lacanian consequences in human nature, caused by the mirror stage, are presented, as they serve as the lines for the following chapters: human nature vs. animal nature, aggressiveness at the nucleus of the ego and the desire of the other as constitutive of desire of the ego.