ABSTRACT

The role of the mirror is discussed in relation to understanding the self A brief history of the mirror introduces the role of the mirror in everyday life and then its use as a metaphor in psychoanalysis. Some psychoanalytic concepts about the mirror as construed by Winnicott, Lacan and Dolto are augmented by the work of Lefebvre and Foucault to show how the mirror functions as a heterotopia. It is proposed that psychoanalytic process operates in a similar way as an ‘other space’ and that the concept of the self, too, has some heterotopian features.