ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the Jacques Lacan's development, using several different entrances. It discusses the ontological status of the subject, which is radically different from the traditional conceptions. The chapter examines the link between Lacan's theory of the subject and his theory of the aims and goals of psychoanalysis. It also focuses on the two constitutive processes within this causation of the subject: alienation and separation. The first one is fully elaborated by Lacan and can easily by traced back to Sigmund Freud. The second one concerns Lacan's interpretation of the end and the finality of the analytic treatment. When comparing this Lacanian operation to the Freudian ones, it becomes obvious that alienation comprises both identification and repression. The basic Lacanian mechanism is easy to describe: the subject-to-be identifies with the pleasure-procuring signifiers in the field of the (m)other and represses the unpleasurable ones.
