ABSTRACT
Jacques Lacan introduces the term 'foreclosure' to explain the massive and global differences between psychosis and neurosis; neurosis operates by way of repression, while psychosis operates by way of foreclosure. Sigmund Freud explains psychosis in terms of a repressed homosexual relationship to the father. Freud compares the mechanisms of neurosis and psychosis in the following terms: in both there is a withdrawal of investment, or object-cathexis, from objects in the world. Lacan chooses 'foreclosure' to translate Freud's Verwerfung, a term which is difficult to chart through the Standard Edition because it is not indexed, but is there usually given the more literal translation of 'rejection.' The implication in Freud is, then, that foreclosure is a mechanism that simply treats the foreclosed as if it did not exist, and as such is distinct from repression where the repressed manifests itself in symptomatic formations.
