Foreclosure (psychoanalysis)
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psychoanalysis PsychoanalysisFrom Greek: + . is a set of theories and therapeutic techniques"What is psychoanalysis? Of course, one is supposed to answer that it is many things — a theory, a research method, a therapy, a body of knowledge. In what might b ...
, foreclosure (also known as "foreclusion"; french: forclusion) is a specific psychical cause for
psychosis Psychosis is a condition of the mind that results in difficulties determining what is real and what is not real. Symptoms may include delusions and hallucinations, among other features. Additional symptoms are incoherent speech and behavior ...
, according to French psychoanalyst
Jacques Lacan Jacques Marie Émile Lacan (, , ; 13 April 1901 – 9 September 1981) was a French psychoanalyst and psychiatrist. Described as "the most controversial psycho-analyst since Freud", Lacan gave yearly seminars in Paris from 1953 to 1981, and pu ...
.


History

According to
Élisabeth Roudinesco Élisabeth Roudinesco ( ro , Rudinescu; born 10 September 1944) is a French historian and psychoanalyst, affiliated researcher in history at Paris Diderot University, in the group « Identités-Cultures-Territoires ». She also conducts a seminar ...
, the term was originally introduced into
psychology Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Psychology includes the study of conscious and unconscious phenomena, including feelings and thoughts. It is an academic discipline of immense scope, crossing the boundaries betwe ...
'in 1928, when Édouard Pichon published, in
Pierre Janet Pierre Marie Félix Janet (; 30 May 1859 – 24 February 1947) was a pioneering French psychologist, physician, philosopher, and psychotherapist in the field of dissociation and traumatic memory. He is ranked alongside William James and ...
's review, his article on "The Psychological Significance of Negation in French": "... ndborrowed the legal term ''forclusif'' to indicate facts that the speaker no longer sees as part of reality'. According to Christophe Laudou, the term was introduced by Damourette and Pichon.


Freud vs Laforgue

The publication took part against the background of the Twenties dispute between Freud and
René Laforgue René Laforgue (5 November 18946 March 1962) was a French psychiatrist and psychoanalyst. Biography Laforgue was born in Thann (then part of the German Empire) and died in Paris. He studied medicine in Berlin, and in 1919 wrote a thesis on "The ...
over
scotomization Scotomization is a psychological term for the mental blocking of unwanted perceptions, analogous to the visual blindness of an actual scotoma. Controversies Reviving in the 1920s a term initially used by Charcot in connection with hysteria, the F ...
. 'If I am not mistaken', Freud wrote in 1927, 'Laforgue would say in this case that the boy "scotomizes" his perception of the woman's lack of a penis. A new technical term is justified when it describes a new fact or emphasizes it. This is not the case here'. Freud went on to suggest that if one wanted to 'reserve the word "'' Verdrängung''" repression"for the affect, then the correct German word for the vicissitude of the idea would be "'' Verleugnung''" disavowal".


Lacan's introduction of foreclosure

In 1938 Lacan relates the origin of psychosis to an exclusion of the father from the family structure thereby reducing this structure to a mother-child relationship. Later on, when working on the distinctions between the real, imaginary and symbolic father, he specifies that it is the absence of the symbolic father which is linked to psychosis. Lacan uses the Freudian term, ''Verwerfung'', which the "Standard Edition" translates as "repudiation", as a specific defence mechanism different from repression, "''Verdrängung''", in which "the ego rejects the incompatible idea together with its affect and behaves as if the idea has never occurred to the ego at all." In 1954 basing himself on a reading of the "Wolf Man" Lacan identifies ''Verwerfung'' as the specific mechanism of psychosis where an element is rejected outside the symbolic order as if it has never existed. In 1956 in his Seminar on Psychoses he translates ''Verwerfung'' as ''forclusion'', that is foreclosure. "Let us extract from several of Freud's texts a term that is sufficiently articulated in them to designate in them a function of the unconscious that is distinct from the repressed. Let us take as demonstrated the essence of my Seminar on the Psychoses, namely, that this term refers to psychosis: this term is ''Verwerfung'' (foreclosure)".


Lacan and psychosis

The problem Lacan sought to address with the twin tools of foreclosure and the signifier was that of the difference between psychosis and neurosis, as manifested in and indicated by language usage. It was common analytic ground that "when psychotics speak they always have some meanings that are too fixed, and some that are far too loose, they have a different relation to language, and a different way of speaking from neurotics." Freud, following Bleuler and
Jung Carl Gustav Jung ( ; ; 26 July 1875 – 6 June 1961) was a Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who founded analytical psychology. Jung's work has been influential in the fields of psychiatry, anthropology, archaeology, literature, philo ...
had pointed to 'a number of changes in ''speech''...in schizophrenics...''words'' are subjected to the same process as that which makes the dream'. Lacan used foreclosure to explain why. When Lacan first uses the Freudian concept of ''Verwerfung'' (repudiation) in his search for a specific mechanism for psychosis, it is not clear what is repudiated (castration, speech). In 1957 in his article "On a question preliminary to any possible treatment of psychosis" that he advances the notion that it is the
Name-of-the-Father The name of the father ( French ') is a concept that Jacques Lacan developed from his seminar ''The Psychoses'' (1955–1956) to cover the role of the father in the Symbolic Order. Lacan plays with the similar sounds in French of ' (the name of ...
(a fundamental signifier) that is the object of foreclosure. In this way Lacan combines two of his main themes on the causality of psychosis: the absence of the father and the concept of ''Verwerfung''. This ideas remains central to Lacan's thinking on psychosis throughout the rest of his work. Lacan considered the father to play a vital role in breaking the initial mother/child duality and introducing the child to the wider world of culture, language, institutions and social reality — the Symbolic world — the father being "the human being who stands for the law and order that the mother plants in the life of the child...widens the child's view of the world." The result in normal development is "proper separation from the mother, as marked out by the Names-of-the-father." Thus Lacan postulates the existence of a paternal function (the "
Name of the Father The name of the father (French ') is a concept that Jacques Lacan developed from his seminar ''The Psychoses'' (1955–1956) to cover the role of the father in the Symbolic Order. Lacan plays with the similar sounds in French of ' (the name of th ...
" or "primordial signifier") which allows the realm of
the Symbolic The Symbolic (or Symbolic Order of the Borromean knot) is the order in the unconscious that gives rise to subjectivity and bridges intersubjectivity between two subjects; an example is Jacques Lacan's idea of desire as the desire of the Other, ...
to be bound to the realms of the Imaginary and
the Real In continental philosophy, the Real refers to the remainder of reality that cannot be expressed, and which surpasses reasoning. In Lacanianism, it is an "impossible" category because of its opposition to expression and inconceivability. In ...
. This function prevents the developing child from being engulfed by its mother and allows him/her to emerge as a separate entity in his/her own right. It is a symbol of parental authority (a general symbol that represents the power of father of the
Oedipus complex The Oedipus complex (also spelled Œdipus complex) is an idea in psychoanalytic theory. The complex is an ostensibly universal phase in the life of a young boy in which, to try to immediately satisfy basic desires, he unconsciously wishes to have ...
) that brings the child into the realm of the Symbolic by forcing him/her to act and to verbalise as an adult. As a result, the three realms are integrated in a way that is conducive to the creation of meaning and successful communication by means of what Lacan calls a
Borromean knot In mathematics, the Borromean rings are three simple closed curves in three-dimensional space that are topologically linked and cannot be separated from each other, but that break apart into two unknotted and unlinked loops when any one of the ...
. When the Name-of-the-Father is foreclosed for a particular subject, it leaves a hole in the Symbolic order which can never be filled. The subject can then be said to have a psychotic structure, even if he shows none of the classical signs of psychosis. When the foreclosed Name-of-the-Father re-appears in the Real, the subject is unable to assimilate it and the result of this collision between the subject and the inassimilable signifier of the Name-of-the-father is the entry into psychosis proper characterized by the onset of hallucinations and/or delusions. In other words, when the paternal function is "foreclosed" from the Symbolic order, the realm of the Symbolic is insufficiently bound to the realm of the Imaginary and failures in meaning may occur (the Borromean knot becomes undone and the three realms completely disconnected), with "a disorder caused at the most personal juncture between the subject and his sense of being alive."Lacan, ''Écrits, ibid'' Psychosis is experienced after some environmental sign in the form of a
signifier In semiotics, signified and signifier (French: ''signifié'' and ''signifiant'') stand for the two main components of a sign, where ''signified'' pertains to the "plane of content", while ''signifier'' is the "plane of expression". The idea was f ...
which the individual cannot assimilate is triggered, and this entails that "the Name-of-the-Father, is foreclosed, ''verworfen'', is called into symbolic opposition to the subject." The fabric of the individual's reality is ripped apart and no meaningful Symbolic sense can be made of experience. "Absence of transcendence of the Oedipus places the subject under the regime of foreclosure or non-distinction between the symbolic and the real';Anika Lemaire, ''Jacques Lacan'' (1979) p. 246 and psychotic
delusions A delusion is a false fixed belief that is not amenable to change in light of conflicting evidence. As a pathology, it is distinct from a belief based on false or incomplete information, confabulation, dogma, illusion, hallucination, or some o ...
or
hallucinations A hallucination is a perception in the absence of an external stimulus that has the qualities of a real perception. Hallucinations are vivid, substantial, and are perceived to be located in external objective space. Hallucination is a combinatio ...
are the consequent result of the individual's striving to account for what he/she experiences.


References


Further reading

*Lacan, Jacques (1993). ''The Seminar. Book III. The Psychoses, 1955-56'', translated by Russell Grigg, New York Norton. *Fink, Bruce (1997). ''A Clinical Introduction to Lacanian Psychoanalysis, Theory and Technique.'' HUP. London *Evans, Dylan (1996). ''Dictionary of Lacanian Psychoanalysis'', London Routledge.


External links


Lacan Dot Com
{{DEFAULTSORT:Foreclosure (Psychoanalysis) Psychoanalytic terminology Jacques Lacan Post-structuralism Structuralism