ABSTRACT
Jean Laplanche sums up his project thus: “It consists in bringing that which is foundational in the practice of psychoanalysis into relation with the foundational process of the human being insofar as this is characterised by the creation of an unconscious”. The infant needs a mother and an adult environment that is capable of asymmetrical responsibility for him, capable of satisfying his ethical exigency. This condition is necessary so that the enigmatic messages can be translated by the infantile psyche, and so that this same adult environment can be a source of assistance and recourse with this translation. Laplanche has insisted on the asymmetry of what he has called “primal seduction”. However, the primal situation is equally asymmetrical in so far as this adult world is responsible for this infant, responsible for it at a time when it is in a state of primary distress and absolutely dependent on the adult world for its physical and psychic survival.
