Love

From No Subject - Encyclopedia of Psychoanalysis

French: [[amour]]

Jacques Lacan
Symbolic
Lacan argues that it
is impossible to say anything meaningful or sensible about love.[1] Indeed,
the moment one starts to speak about love, one descends into imbecility.
[2]
 Given these views, it might seem surprising that Lacan himself dedicates a
great deal of his seminar precisely to speaking about love. However, in doing
so, Lacan is merely demonstrating what the analysand does in psychoanalytic
treatment, for "the only thing that we do in the analytic
discourse is speak about love."[3]
Imaginary
Love is located by Lacan as a purely imaginary phenomenon, although it has
effects in the symbolic order.[4] Love is autoerotic, and has a
fundamentally narcissistic structure since "it's one's own ego that one loves in
love, one's own ego made real on the
imaginary level."[5] The imaginary nature of love leads Lacan to oppose all
those analysts who posit love as an ideal in psychoanalytic treatment.[6]
Love involves an imaginary reciprocity, since "to love is, essentially, to wish to
be loved."[7] It is this reciprocity between "loving" and "being loved" that
constitutes the illusion of love, and this is what distinguishes it from
the order of the drives, in which there is no reciprocity, only pure activity.
[8]
 Love is an illusory fantasy of fusion with the beloved which makes up for
the absence of any sexual relationship.[9] This is especially clear in the
asexual concept of courtly love.[10]
Love is deceptive. "As a specular mirage, love is essentially deception."[11] It
is deceptive because it involves giving what one does not have (i.e.
the phallus); to love is "to give what one does not have."[12] Love is directed not
at what the love-object has, but at what he lacks, at the nothing beyond him.
The object is valued insofar as it comes in the place of that lack.
Love and Desire
One of the most complex areas of Lacan's work concerns
the relationship between love and desire. On the one hand, the two terms are
diametrically opposed. On the other hand, this opposition is problematized by
certain similarities between the two:
Opposition
As an imaginary phenomenon which belongs to the field of the ego, love is
clearly opposed to desire, which is inscribed in the symbolic order, the field of
the Other.[13] Love is a metaphor, whereas desire is metonymy.[14] It can even
be said that love kills desire, since love is based on a fantasy of oneness with
the beloved and this abolishes the difference which gives rise to desire.[15]
Similarity
On the other hand, there are elements in Lacan's work which destabilize the
neat opposition between love and desire.

1. Firstly, they are both similar in that neither can

ever be satisfied.
2. Secondly, the structure of love as "the wish to be
loved" is identical to the structure of desire, in
which the subject desires to become
the object of the Other's desire.
3. Thirdly, in
the dialectic of need/demand/desire, desire is bo
rn precisely from the unsatisfied part of demand,
which is the demand for love.
Lacan's own discourse on love is thus often complicated by the
same substitution of "desire" for "love" which he himself highlights in
the text of Plato's Symposium.[16]
Courtly Love
Courtly love "is an altogether refined way of making up for the absence
of sexual relation by pretending that it is we who put an obstacle to it." Courtly
love is a love of the impossible, a love for the obstacle which forever thwarts
love - an elegant way of coming to terms with the absence of sexual relations.

See Also
 Analysan  Desire  Lack  Speech
 Metonymy
d  Dialectic  Lure  Structure
 Need
 Analyst  Discours  Metapho  Treatmen
 Signification
 Demand e r t

References
1. Jump up↑ Lacan, Jacques. Le Séminaire. Livre VIII. Le transfert, 1960-61.
Ed. Jacques-Alain Miller. Paris: Seuil, 1991. p. 57
2. Jump up↑ Lacan, Jacques. Le Séminaire. Livre XX. Encore, 1972-73. Ed. Jacques-
Alain Miller. Paris: Seuil, 1975. p. 17
3. Jump up↑ Lacan, Jacques. Le Séminaire. Livre XX. Encore, 1972-73. Ed. Jacques-
Alain Miller. Paris: Seuil, 1975. p. 77
4. Jump up↑ (one of those effects being to produce "a veritable subduction of the
symbolic") Lacan, Jacques. The Seminar. Book I. Freud's Papers on Technique,
 1953-54. Trans. John Forrester. New York: Nortion; Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1988. p. 142
5. Jump up↑ Lacan, Jacques. The Seminar. Book I. Freud's Papers on Technique,
1953-54. Trans. John Forrester. New York: Nortion; Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1988. p. 142
6. Jump up↑ Lacan, Jacques. The Seminar. Book VII. The Ethics of Psychoanalysis,
1959-60. Trans. Dennis Porter. London: Routledge, 1992. p. 8
7. Jump up↑ Lacan, Jacques. The Seminar. Book XI. The Four Fundamental Concepts
of Psychoanalysis, 1964. Trans. Alan Sheridan. London: Hogarth Press and Institute
of Psycho-Analysis, 1977. p. 253
8. Jump up↑ Lacan, Jacques. The Seminar. Book XI. The Four Fundamental Concepts
of Psychoanalysis, 1964. Trans. Alan Sheridan. London: Hogarth Press and Institute
of Psycho-Analysis, 1977. p. 200
9. Jump up↑ Lacan, Jacques. Le Séminaire. Livre XX. Encore, 1972-73. Ed. Jacques-
Alain Miller. Paris: Seuil, 1975. p. 44
10. Jump up↑ Lacan, Jacques. Le Séminaire. Livre XX. Encore, 1972-73. Ed. Jacques-
Alain Miller. Paris: Seuil, 1975. p. 65
11. Jump up↑ Lacan, Jacques. The Seminar. Book XI. The Four Fundamental Concepts
of Psychoanalysis, 1964. Trans. Alan Sheridan. London: Hogarth Press and Institute
of Psycho-Analysis, 1977. p. 268
12. Jump up↑ Lacan, Jacques. Le Séminaire. Livre VIII. Le transfert, 1960-61.
Ed. Jacques-Alain Miller. Paris: Seuil, 1991. p. 147
13. Jump up↑ Lacan, Jacques. The Seminar. Book XI. The Four Fundamental Concepts
of Psychoanalysis, 1964. Trans. Alan Sheridan. London: Hogarth Press and Institute
of Psycho-Analysis, 1977. pp. 189-91
14. Jump up↑ Lacan, Jacques. Le Séminaire. Livre VIII. Le transfert, 1960-61.
Ed. Jacques-Alain Miller. Paris: Seuil, 1991. p. 53
15. Jump up↑ Lacan, Jacques. Le Séminaire. Livre XX. Encore, 1972-73. Ed. Jacques-
Alain Miller. Paris: Seuil, 1975. p. 46
16. Jump up↑ Lacan, Jacques. Le Séminaire. Livre VIII. Le transfert, 1960-61.
Ed. Jacques-Alain Miller. Paris: Seuil, 1991. p. 141

Categories: 
 Psychoanalysis
 Jacques Lacan
 Dictionary
 Concepts
 Terms
 OK
 Imaginary
Navigation menu
 Create account
 Log in
 Page
 Discussion
 Read
 View source
 View history
Search
Go

 Main Page
 Discussion Board
 Contact
Sigmund Freud
 Biography
 Bibliography
 Links
Jacques Lacan
 Downloads
 Biography
 Bibliography
 Seminars
 Video
 Images
 Links
 More
Slavoj Žižek
 Downloads
 Biography
 Books
 Articles
 Audio
Alain Badiou
 Biography
 Books
 Articles
 Dictionary
Links
 TheoryLeaks
 ZizekUpdates
Advertisement
Toolbox
 What links here
 Related changes
 Special pages
 Printable version
 Permanent link
 Page information
 Cite this page
 Page contributors
 This page was last edited on 25 May 2019, at 20:18.
 This page has been accessed 4,690 times.

 About No Subject - Encyclopedia of Psychoanalysis

 CONTACT

 Terms of Use

 Mobile view
