ABSTRACT
In the Lacanian perspective, accession to the mediation of the symbol is, therefore, indispensable if the ordering of the world, of things, beings and of life is to be effected. The dual relationship opens up the dialectic of alienating identifications does, however, persist in man despite the assumption of subjectivity through entry into the symbolic. This is a matter of splitting, which is nothing but the loss of a good part of the symbolic references through repression. In cases of neurosis, it is always possible to restore the forgotten relations by analysis, whereas the outcome is more doubtful in psychosis. When Jacques Lacan speaks of the dual relationship, he often refers to the so-called mirror stage, a stage he was the first to put any special stress on. The mirror stage situates the instance of the ego in a line of fiction, of alienation. Self-recognition in the mirror takes place somewhere between the ages of six and eight months.
