Demand (psychoanalysis)
Encyclopedia
'In Lacan
, demand appears to be a generic term designating the symbolic, significant site in which the primordial desire is gradually alienated'. 'The concept of demand is not Freudian. It was developed by Jacques Lacan, who linked it with need and desire...arises only from speech'.
Demand forms part of Lacan's 'return to the theory of desire outlined by Kojeve', and was used by him against the approach to language acquisition favored by ego psychology
.
had recognised that 'acquisition of the faculty of speech...is a decisive step in the formation of the ego', and that 'the child's earliest speech is a charm directed toward forcing the external world and fate to do those things that have been conjured up in words'. Ego psychology accepted that 'this first "I" is an "I" seeking satisfaction, an "I" of wants..."I wanna"'; but perhaps celebrated too easily 'how language becomes a means for control of body impulses'.
Lacan by contrast stressed the more sinister side of man's early submergence in language, pointing out how 'demand constitutes the Other as already possessing the "privilege" of satisfying needs', and indeed how the child's biological needs are themselves altered by 'the condition that is imposed on him by the existence of the discourse, to make his need pass through the defiles of the signifier'. The very act of 'speaking the demand alters it, and the child who receives the demanded object will discover that he no longer wants it. Love...is no longer sufficient, and the child has entered into the world of desire'.
in the Real
is transformed into the Symbolic
medium of language
. Whether or not demands achieve their apparent aims, they are always successful in the sense that all parapraxes or slips of the tongue are successful - they faithfully express unconscious
signifying formations. But because the Real is never totally symbolizable, a residue or kernel of desire is left behind by every demand, representing a lost surplus of jouissance
for the subject
. For Lacan, 'desire is situated in dependence on demand - which, by being articulated in signifiers, leaves a metonymic
remainder which runs under it'. Inherently 'frustrated demand is what gives birth to desire': "Don't give me what I ask for, that's not it."
The result in the neurotic may be a dominance of 'the Parental Other, the Other of (or as) demand'; as well as of the objects 'demanded by the Other: grades, diplomas, success, marriage, children - all the things usually associated with anxiety in neurosis'. Lacan considered that for the neurotic 'the demand of the Other assumes the function of an object in his phantasy...this prevalence given by the neurotic to demand'.
...is formulated at first, in the discourse of the patient, as demand'. Through such demands, 'the whole past opens up right down to early infancy. The subject has never done anything other than demand, he could not have survived otherwise, and...regression
shows nothing other than a return to the present of signifiers used in demands'. He also stressed 'the terrible temptation that must face the analyst to respond however little to demand', even if only 'in the form of the demand to cure'.
François Roustang however 'challenges this Lacanian practice...and suggests that the demand of transference love is not necessarily a demand for the end of the analysis, but a demand for the analyst to move his or her position'.
Lacan
Lacan is surname of:* Jacques Lacan , French psychoanalyst and psychiatrist** The Seminars of Jacques Lacan** From Bakunin to Lacan: Anti-Authoritarianism and the Dislocation of Power, a book on political philosophy by Saul Newman** Lacan at the Scene* Judith Miller, née Lacan...
, demand appears to be a generic term designating the symbolic, significant site in which the primordial desire is gradually alienated'. 'The concept of demand is not Freudian. It was developed by Jacques Lacan, who linked it with need and desire...arises only from speech'.
Demand forms part of Lacan's 'return to the theory of desire outlined by Kojeve', and was used by him against the approach to language acquisition favored by ego psychology
Ego psychology
Ego psychology is a school of psychoanalysis rooted in Sigmund Freud's structural id-ego-superego model of the mind.An individual interacts with the external world as well as responds to internal forces. Many psychoanalysts use a theoretical construct called the ego to explain how that is done...
.
Language acquisition
For Lacan, 'all speech is demand; it presupposes the Other to whom it is addressed, whose very signifiers it takes over in its formulation': demand is thus the result of the effect 'the acquisition of language ha[s] on...biological needs'. Traditionally, psychoanalysisPsychoanalysis
Psychoanalysis is a psychological theory developed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries by Austrian neurologist Sigmund Freud. Psychoanalysis has expanded, been criticized and developed in different directions, mostly by some of Freud's former students, such as Alfred Adler and Carl Gustav...
had recognised that 'acquisition of the faculty of speech...is a decisive step in the formation of the ego', and that 'the child's earliest speech is a charm directed toward forcing the external world and fate to do those things that have been conjured up in words'. Ego psychology accepted that 'this first "I" is an "I" seeking satisfaction, an "I" of wants..."I wanna"'; but perhaps celebrated too easily 'how language becomes a means for control of body impulses'.
Lacan by contrast stressed the more sinister side of man's early submergence in language, pointing out how 'demand constitutes the Other as already possessing the "privilege" of satisfying needs', and indeed how the child's biological needs are themselves altered by 'the condition that is imposed on him by the existence of the discourse, to make his need pass through the defiles of the signifier'. The very act of 'speaking the demand alters it, and the child who receives the demanded object will discover that he no longer wants it. Love...is no longer sufficient, and the child has entered into the world of desire'.
Desire
In Lacanian thought, a demand results when a lackLack (manque)
Lack , is, in Lacan's psychoanalytic philosophy, always related to desire. In his seminar Le transfert he states that lack is what causes desire to arise....
in the Real
The Real
The Real refers to that which is authentic, the unchangeable truth in reference both to being/the Self and the external dimension of experience, also referred to as the infinite and absolute - as opposed to a reality based on sense perception and the material order.-In psychoanalysis:The Real is a...
is transformed into the Symbolic
The Symbolic
The Symbolic is a part of the psychoanalytic theory of Jacques Lacan, part of his attempt 'to distinguish between those elementary registers whose grounding I later put forward in these terms: the symbolic, the imaginary, and the real - a distinction never previously made in psychoanalysis'.-The...
medium of language
Language
Language may refer either to the specifically human capacity for acquiring and using complex systems of communication, or to a specific instance of such a system of complex communication...
. Whether or not demands achieve their apparent aims, they are always successful in the sense that all parapraxes or slips of the tongue are successful - they faithfully express unconscious
Unconscious mind
The unconscious mind is a term coined by the 18th century German romantic philosopher Friedrich Schelling and later introduced into English by the poet and essayist Samuel Taylor Coleridge...
signifying formations. But because the Real is never totally symbolizable, a residue or kernel of desire is left behind by every demand, representing a lost surplus of jouissance
Jouissance
The term jouissance, in French, denotes "pleasure" or "enjoyment." The term has a sexual connotation lacking in the English word "enjoyment", and is therefore left untranslated in English editions of the works of Jacques Lacan. In his Seminar "The Ethics of Psychoanalysis" Lacan develops his...
for the subject
Subject (philosophy)
In philosophy, a subject is a being that has subjective experiences, subjective consciousness or a relationship with another entity . A subject is an observer and an object is a thing observed...
. For Lacan, 'desire is situated in dependence on demand - which, by being articulated in signifiers, leaves a metonymic
Metonymy
Metonymy is a figure of speech used in rhetoric in which a thing or concept is not called by its own name, but by the name of something intimately associated with that thing or concept...
remainder which runs under it'. Inherently 'frustrated demand is what gives birth to desire': "Don't give me what I ask for, that's not it."
The Other's demands
Lacan describes 'the Mother [as] the real Other of demand'; and for post-Lacanians, 'demand cannot be conceived independently of the infant's identification with the discourse that the mother expresses in response to the baby's cries, smiles, gurgling, and gestures....The child is also divided from its own real demand by identifying with whatever part of that demand the mother expresses'.The result in the neurotic may be a dominance of 'the Parental Other, the Other of (or as) demand'; as well as of the objects 'demanded by the Other: grades, diplomas, success, marriage, children - all the things usually associated with anxiety in neurosis'. Lacan considered that for the neurotic 'the demand of the Other assumes the function of an object in his phantasy...this prevalence given by the neurotic to demand'.
Transference
Lacan considered that 'the transferenceTransference
Transference is a phenomenon in psychoanalysis characterized by unconscious redirection of feelings from one person to another. One definition of transference is "the inappropriate repetition in the present of a relationship that was important in a person's childhood." Another definition is "the...
...is formulated at first, in the discourse of the patient, as demand'. Through such demands, 'the whole past opens up right down to early infancy. The subject has never done anything other than demand, he could not have survived otherwise, and...regression
Regression
Regression could refer to:* Regression , a defensive reaction to some unaccepted impulses* Regression analysis, a statistical technique for estimating the relationships among variables...
shows nothing other than a return to the present of signifiers used in demands'. He also stressed 'the terrible temptation that must face the analyst to respond however little to demand', even if only 'in the form of the demand to cure'.
François Roustang however 'challenges this Lacanian practice...and suggests that the demand of transference love is not necessarily a demand for the end of the analysis, but a demand for the analyst to move his or her position'.