Introduction

Lacan discusses the notes that psychologists - in particular, Henri Wallon France - had made as they observed the infant's experience when looking at a mirror. If authors examine Lacan's ground-breaking paper on the mirror stage, it is interesting to note that it was first read at the International Psycoanalytical Associartion Congress (IPA) in Marienbad. Lacan, however, did not give up hope of defending his point of view, and he presented another version of his paper at the 1949 IPA Congress in Zurich. That paper represents one of the basic tenets of Lacanian thinking and gives a direct description of the characteristic features of that approach. Nacht goes even further in his therapeutic approach when he advocates, as he does in this paper, a 'gratifying presence' that would open the door to challenging the analyst's neutrality. Finally, Bouvet highlights the fact that symptoms of depersonalisation may arise 'when the relation to the object is not kept at an optimum distance'.