ABSTRACT
Starting from the premise that the unconscious is structured like a language, the French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan gave a new orientation to Freudian theory and practice that makes Lacanian psychoanalysis the most flourishing and dynamic form of psychoanalysis today. The acknowledged stature of his work notwithstanding, Lacan remains a controversial figure within the field of psychoanalysis. The theory of the mirror stage combines the psychological observation that between the ages of six months and eighteen months, the infant is fascinated by its image in a mirror with the biological fact of its physiological prematurity. The turning point in Lacan’s work came in the early 1950s with the introduction of the distinction between the symbolic and the imaginary. The introduction of the symbolic enabled Lacan to distinguish between the ego as constituted by a series of imaginary identifications and the subject regarded as the result of the effect of language upon the human being.
