The Phallus is a Signifier

Ian Parker
I: Freud Anna Freud, before she became a great analyst, is in Vienna, at home with her father. The two of them are discussing psychoanalysis, when Anna turns to Freud and says There is one thing I ha!e always been meaning to ask that I am not sure about" #hat is the phallus$ Freud says #ell, this is something I could try to e%plain to you, but perhaps it is best if you come into my office. So, the two of them go into Freud&s office. 'e closes the door, goes to his desk, turns around and unbuttons his trousers, pulls them down and says 'ere, this is the phallus. Anna replies (h, I see, it&s like a penis, only smaller. There are, of course, many le!els to this story. )ach le!el sets up boundaries between insider and outsider, between those who are supposed to know something more about psychoanalysis than those who do not. For Freud, a tendentious *oke like this re+uires that there be a second person operating in the *oke as the ob*ect, the dupe who is dumb enough not to get it. This figure may be e%plicitly con*ured up in the course of the *oke or e!oked as the necessary but hidden blank, an absence of knowledge. ,-. ,/. II: Penis #hen Freud ponders psychical conse+uences of anatomical distinction between the se%es he assumes the actual presence of the penis and then the perception of it 0or perception of the absence of it1, and then the process of making sense of that perception of something missing. The perceptual *udgment is supposed to be faster in the girl, and her percei!ed bodily lack launches her into the (edipus comple%2 the boy will only belie!e what he has seen 0or not seen1 later on when the comple% is, Freud says, literally smashed to pieces by the shock of threatened castration. ,3. In both cases anatomical distinction is organi4ed around the penis as such, and the penis, for Freud, owes its e%traordinarily high narcissistic cathe%is to its organic significance for the propagation of the species. ,5. 6acan takes the well7known Freudian claim that anatomy is destiny in a different direction. 8ather than taken as gi!en, anatomy is treated as a historically7constituted practice of cutting up the body. That process of marking and di!iding flesh has conse+uences for how the body is represented and e%perienced, *ust as hysterical con!ersion operates on how the sub*ect concei!es of their body. Stigmata that appear on the palms and feet of the !ery hysterically 9hristian faithful, for e%ample, do not correspond to the actual points of the body in crucifi%ion 0in which stakes were dri!en through the wrists and ankles in order to attach them to the cross1 but to symbolic representations of those points. Shifting focus from the biological organ to that which is narcissistically cathected and charged with signification, from the penis to the phallus, does not immediately sol!e the problem of accounting for why it is that the penis is so charged. In this respect 6acan follows Freud, commenting that it is the turgidity of the phallus that makes it the image of the !ital flow as it is transmitted in generation, and that it is the most salient of what can be grasped in se%ual intercourse as real. ,:. It would seem that a se%ual relation of a particular kind 7 heterose%ual intercourse 7 is still taken as the bodily ground of the signifier that will come to define that se%ual relation as impossible. ;e!ertheless, 6acan&s terminological shift does gi!e us an opening onto a conceptuali4ation of the phallus as not necessarily

e+ui!alent to a biological organ. III: Prescription The impetus of 6acan&s reformulation of se%ual difference as go!erned by symbolic laws rather than biological processes began way before his employment of structuralism and attention to the work of the signifier. 'is article on family comple%es in the -<3=s, for e%ample, makes it clear that he !iewed the similarity between normal components of the family as they are seen in our contemporary western world and those of the biological family as completely contingent. ,>. 'owe!er, this also meant that symbolic forms that determine the location and internal shape of the family become all the more important for 6acan" From the beginning there e%ist prohibitions and laws , he says2 and in this statement we can start to see why structural anthropology will be of use to him later to e%plore the nature of the symbolic law in which the lack of the mother and her child are constituted. ,?. In that perspecti!e women ser!e as ob*ects for e%changes ordained by the elementary structures of kinship , and so one of the tasks of psychoanalysis is to map the way bodies and bits of bodies are signified and positioned in relation to one another. That takes us beyond a phenomenological account, which e%trapolates categories from li!ed e%perience, and beyond a social constructionist account of how the categories we use come to function. Psychoanalysis works at the gap, at the dis*unction between these two accounts, precisely at where they fail to correspond2 the impossible relationship between the two accounts itself leads 6acan to oscillate around the point where they could *oin. At one moment, then, the phallus is the &pointy e%tremity& that predisposes it to the fantasy of it falling off , and at the ne%t it is a real organ in!ested by way of the signifier&s imaginary function of prohibiting ob*ects. ,@. The intimate relationship between the orders of the symbolic, imaginary and real thus treats what we ha!e come to call gender as itself a signifier that operates as an imaginary effect of a real difference, a tangle or knotting of the three orders that is historically constituted. ,<. This is not to say that 6acan was any more a feminist than Freud, but his insistence on the contingent and necessary signification of the phallus as penis in the contemporary western world ensures that psychoanalysis describes the contours of patriarchal society without prescribing it for all. ,-=. IV: Gold The difficulty of e%plaining e%actly why it is that the representation of one particular kind of ob*ect should come to function as a pri!ileged signifier that is inde%ed to the real 7 that functions as real 7 can be seen in historical materialism. This is not such a tendentious connection between patriarchy and capitalism, as can be appreciated if we turn for a moment to look at how Aar% needed to go beyond the natural properties of gold, its durability, uniformity and di!isibility ,--. to e%plain why gold has come to operate as that substance which will underpin the !alue of money. Aoney as such operates as a tautological signifying system, of course" 8ecent 'egelian readings of Aar% put it like this2 money makes the !alue dimension coherent by situating commodities in a common relation to a single point of !iew on them which is yet not among them, ha!ing been e%cluded from them. ,-/. In Ba!id Aamet&s film Heist, mobster Banny Be Vito screams down the phone (f course the money&s important, that&s why it&s called moneyC 2 but while this appeal to money as such appears ridiculous, it

does not pre!ent economic systems trying to find ways of guaranteeing that the money&s important. An appeal to the !alue of gold is one way of settling this +uestion, ,-3. but gold as such operates as the shell of a &social substance& posited in the relation of commodities and money rather than ha!ing some natural !alue. In a Aar%ist account, then, All commodities must e%clude one commodity from the relati!e form in order to ser!e as uni+ue e+ui!alent. The natural body of gold is e+ui!alent to !alue as such according to the commodities in relati!e form. ,-5. There is an analogy, perhaps e!en a homology, between gold and the phallus , and the rationale for an argument that ,*.ust as gold was detached from the body of goods in order to become the only e+ui!alent that decides on their !alue, the penis would be detached from the body of erotic ob*ects to become the phallus, the standard of !alue. ,-:. )!en so, most Aar%ists do not now pay as much attention to the !alue of gold as 6acanians pay to the phallus. 0The #orkers 8e!olutionary Party in the DE was one e%ception to this, and did obsessi!ely focus on the importance of gold and the gold standard, much in the same way that men are obsessed with the phallus.1 V: Signification For 6acanians signification is the currency of sub*ecti!ity. The signifying material that gi!es us the stuff out of which we make oursel!es is already wo!en into shapes that will determine what we can make of it. There is a crucial pu44le posed to the human sub*ect when it uses signifiers, a pu44le about what position it might be possible to take up outside the signifiers themsel!es. The fantasy of an e%ternal !antage point, the idea that there might be some kind of metalanguage, runs deep, and there are a number of elements to this fantasy. (ne element in!ol!es the positing of a figure that might stand outside signification, an (ther of the (ther that pulls the strings. Another element, which is a se%uali4ed fantasy about the nature of en*oyment that escapes signification and perhaps precedes it, is what we find in Freud&s classic image of the father of the primal horde who en*oyed all the women, all the women who are the ob*ects of e%change. For 6acan this was not an anthropological disco!ery, but Freud&s myth, a powerful myth that defines what a man is by the position of ownership 0of women1 and always already substituti!e secondary reduced gratification compared with that first father. VI: Difference Speaking within this system of signifiers is erotici4ed, as is the condition of possibility of speaking itself. #hen 6acan refers to the phallus as the signifier of signification as such, ,->.then, this necessarily entails an analysis of the way that signification is erotici4ed and suffused with what we imagine the erotic to pertain to, that it must be to do with the relation between men and women. ,-?. Three aspects are thus knotted together 7 the function of signification, the erotici4ed nature of signification, and the organi4ation of this erotici4ed signification around the problematic of gender 7 and these three aspects cannot be disentangled in reality. They can only be disentangled conceptually, or in psychoanalysis, and then only briefly as a sub*ect speaks and fades within that !ery erotici4ed signifying stuff that makes them man or woman. ,-@. The punctuation of the chain of signifiers in analysis gi!es the sub*ect space to breathe, but that system of signifiers that appears in a chain in the articulation of a discourse and in the act of speaking is itself already structured. ,-<. There is a history to the punctuation of written te%t, and that history presupposes a !iew of what language is really like. ,/=.

The insistence that language can be captured and understood, that we can grasp what it is really like is peculiarly obsessional, and, we might say, stereotypically masculine. In that sense ...to speak is already a phallic function. ,/-. Fice Fen!enuto puts the implication of the argument like this" #e could say that the unconscious is feminine, that it is the negation, the un, the other, of phallic consciousness. ,//. Then, when we return to Freud&s cases we can start to locate the position of men and women in relation to the phallus. So, on the one hand, for e%ample, according to Fen!enuto, Bora&s illness was the effect of her compliance, e!en identification and complicity with the world of her father, and her disagreement with the place it assigned to her. #ith her aphonia she was on strike for the recognition of the difference which would gi!e her the right to speak. ,/3. And, on the other hand, she continues, #e could say that if the phallus threatens men with losing their penis, it threatens the woman with losing her feminine soul. ,/5. VII: Fathers ;ow we are at the entrance to hea!en, at the pearly gates where Saint Peter is welcoming the newcomers. It is a long, seemingly interminable, *ob. (ne day Gesus appears and tells Peter that he can ha!e a rest, that he will stand in for him, so Peter goes inside and Gesus stands there in the swirling mist at the gates. Shortly afterwards an old man comes towards him, towards the gates of hea!en, and appeals to Gesus, saying I am looking for my son. #ell , says Gesus, a lot of people pass through here, but tell me about him and we will see what we can do. (k , says the old man, (ne of the strange things about my son is that he was not born as other men were born, of a woman and a man. That is unusual , says Gesus, a little surprised. And there is another thing , says the old man2 'e has a hole in each of wrists here and here, and holes there and there in his ankles. Gesus leans forward to see the man better, and peering through the mist says Father$ The old man mo!es closer, ga4ing more intently, and says Pinocchio$ 8eligious imagery and stories for children share features that key us into underlying assumptions about the nature of human reproduction, about, to borrow a phrase from 6acan, the image of the !ital flow as it is transmitted in generation. 9hristianity pro!ides the frame for this *oke and also, simultaneously, the affecti!e stuff of the story of Pinocchio as the representation of the relationship between a father and his little phallus7child 0a wooden boy whose nose grows longer when he fails to tell the truth1. ,/:. For men there is an intimate relationship between castration and debt that is sol!ed, at the le!el of the imaginary, by the notion that there is actually something that will compensate them for their loss2 it is when it is concei!ed as some thing that it is the phallus. The pri4e might be a child, but first there is an impossible relation between men and women to be negotiated, and the man imagines that he will possess this phallus, and ha!e it as a signifier of his masculinity when he has a woman. 'owe!er, a woman is not only a symbolic function but a speaking sub*ect, and so her position is characteri4ed by performance 0an acti!ity that is now celebrated by some feminists and +ueer theorists re7producing and unra!eling 6acan from within1, an appearance that can only imperfectly correspond to what the man imagines he possesses2 when she appears to the man as what he thinks he desires it will only, then, be as masked, !eiled, in her womanliness as mas+uerade. ,/>. In the case of Heppetto7who in the *oke mistakes Gesus, the son of Hod, for his own Pinocchio7 it would be possible to find in his desire for paternity the symbolic e+uation boyIphallus. This e+uation,

howe!er, runs against an argument in the psychoanalytic literature that 6acan then picks up and reworks2 that is, the argument that there is a symbolic e+uation in per!ersion of girlIphallus. ,/?. VIII: Equations (tto Fenichel reports 0in a -<5< paper1 the case of a trans!estite who combined his own femininity with a nai!e narcissistic lo!e for his own penis, which as a child he had called pet names2 indeed the girl&s name which he wanted to ha!e as a girl bore a striking resemblance to the pet name for his penis. ,/@. This fantasy is complemented, Fenichel argues, by the finding that girls, in their unconscious fantasies, fre+uently identify themsel!es with a penis. ,/<. #hat is of interest here is not so much whether this is actually the case for e!ery woman 0or e!en whether one can e%trapolate from this particular case to e!ery trans!estite1. 8ather, there are two things we can note from Fenichel&s circuitous *ourney in his paper from cases of trans!estism to female fantasy to popular culture and so to representations of men and women. The first is the phenomenon of clowning 2 Fenichel reports the case 0in a way that might well ha!e appealed to 6acan1 of a patient with a distinct predilection for clowning, for grotes+ue humor of the American kind and this leads him to general comments about a type of child who in!ariably seeks to entertain his playmates or adults by *okes of the most !aried kind, and who continually plays the clown, the Punchinello. ,3=. The second thing about Fenichel&s paper 0which also leads us to 6acan1, is the fantasy of a girl7child that may then be e%trapolated to children in general. 'ere we do perhaps need some analysis of the nature of the child as a femini4ed condition, and then the nature of the de!elopment of the child as a masculine endea!or, an analysis that is elaborated in some of the critical work on ideologies of child de!elopment. ,3-. Fenichel, for e%ample, draws attention to The fantasy of being gi!en o!er femininely to a person great and powerful, at the same time to be united with him so indissolubly as to be a !ery part of him, together with the idea that one is moreo!er the most important part without which the mighty one would be powerless. ,3/. 'e then goes on to note that this fantasy is to be found in a particular type of religious de!otee. ,33. #hat this draws attention to, then, is the other side of the e+uation in the relationship between Gesus and Heppetto, the uncanny point at which their desire to complete each other is complementary, which perhaps is the point of the *oke. If Pinocchio is the phallus for Heppetto, that which will really make him a real man at the moment that Pinocchio becomes a real boy, so Gesus wants to be the phallus of his father, the most important part of the father without which he, the father, would be powerless2 he will succeed in being that when he is what his father desires. 0'is father here is Hod, not Goseph, who, like Heppetto, was a mere carpenter.1 'owe!er, 6acan notes that the symbolic order positions not the father but the mother as the first almighty one with a desire for something that the child attempts to be. That something is the phallus. IX: Psychosis 6acan&s comments on Fenichel are in the conte%t of a discussion of the Schreber case. Schreber writes that Hod entered into e%clusi!e ner!e7contact with me, and I thus became the sole human being on whom 'is interest centers... ,35. 0That is, Schreber is united with the almighty and a most important part of the almighty.1 6acan is concerned here with the way that the elementary structures of kinship 7 that is, symbolic matter 7 are sometimes perpetuated in the imaginary. ,3:. And, 6acan argues, what is simultaneously transmitted in the symbolic order is the phallus. ,3>.

The symbolic e+uation that Fenichel outlines in his -<5< paper is thus taken up and reworked by 6acan so that it would seem that for e!ery child there is an attempt to identify with what the mother wants, what is lacking in the mother, what she herself desires as something beyond her. There are thus imaginary paths by which the child&s desire manages to identify with the mother&s want7to7be , but this want is itself constituted by the symbolic law. ,3?. There are four points to note here. First, the e+uation Hirl I Phallus for 6acan is a symbolic e+uation which is structured by the elementary structures of kinship. Second, this is how it is for 6acan as a theorist who knows that the phallus is something !aluable, not necessarily a Hirl at all, which is transmitted in the symbolic order. Third, this is how it is for the neurotic 0the closest one gets to being normal 1, e%cept that we all misunderstand what this e+uation is, confusing it with our own imaginary paths that we take toward making sense of it as we identify with the mother&s want7to7 be. 'owe!er, fourth, the psychotic has not located themsel!es in the symbolic order2 they ha!e foreclosed this symbolic reality. ,3@. There is another pre!alent reading of this passage which would +ualify that description of the child&s identification with the mother&s want7to7be as one that pertains only to the psychotic, and which then re7forges an already culturally potent representation between femininity and madness. ,3<. ,5=. and she goes on to note that ,a.t the imaginary le!el there is misogyny, the hatred of women. ,5-. Instead, she argues, we could perhaps offer a more general formulation that says, for e%ample, &being the leader that the masses lack& or &being the 9hrist that humanity lacks&2 that is, &being the ,%.... that lacks to ...,something or other..& ,5/. #hat is still uni!ersal, howe!er, for Frousse, is the &0not being1 able to be the phallus that the mother lacks&. ,53. X: History From deep within the 6acanian tradition, then, there is opening up a space for the historical location of clinical phenomena, and so also of the phallus. And e!en if 6acanians are not the most ardent feminists, there is also space for a connection with the feminist arguments that the phallus is a function of particular kinds of social arrangement in which women are ob*ects of e%change and men imagine themsel!es to be the centre of the world. ,55. 6acan comments in The Ethics of Psychoanalysis that At the end of one of his final papers, &Analysis Terminable and Interminable&, Freud tells us that in the end the aspiration of the patient collapses into an ineradicable nostalgia for the fact that there is no way he can be the phallus, and that since he cannot be it, he can only ha!e it in the condition of thePenisneid 0penis en!y1 in a woman or of castration in a man. ,5:. This is why , 6acan says, the analyst can&t pro!ide happiness" ;ot only doesn&t he ha!e that So!ereign Hood that is asked of him, but he also knows there isn&t any. To ha!e carried an analysis through to its end is no more or less than to ha!e encountered that limit in which the problematic of desire is raised. ,5>. There is a hippy !an near our house with moral in*unctions posted o!er it, including one bumper sticker which reads The best things in life aren&t things2 would that it were so easy to dispel the phallus as an organi4ing principle, an anchoring point, a thing that men and women in this culture are dri!en to ha!e or to be. Theoretical elaboration of the phallus as a signifier in psychoanalysis is powerful for men, and women" 6acan maps the imaginary paths by which the child&s desire manages to identify with the mother&s want7to7be, and he opens the way to an analysis which addresses the position of those inducted into the symbolic law in which this want is constituted. ,5?.

#e could say that the end of analysis entails incompleteness and an acceptance of castration. This is not the end of history, but a crucial link with feminist analyses of heteropatriarchy and Aar%ist analyses of capitalism, analyses in which we can really understand better the history that has formed us as beings that imagine that they must re!ol!e around the phallus. #e can then accept the role of the phallus as a historically7structured symbolic function. #e come to know, as Anna Freud did in the little !ignette that opened this paper, that it is smaller than we first thought, and neither women nor men can actually ha!e it at all. Notes: ,-. Henerally speaking a tendentious *oke calls for three people" in addition to the one who makes the *oke, there must be a second who is taken as the ob*ect of the hostile or se%ual aggressi!eness, and a third in whom the *oke&s aim of producing pleasure is fulfilled. Freud, S. 0-<=:1 Gokes and their relation to the unconscious , in S.E. VIII, pp. -7/:@. 6ondon" The 'ogarth Press. ,/. The relationship between the one who makes the *oke and the third person can be conceptuali4ed as a discursi!e position which depends upon and creates their ob*ect&s e%clusion 2 *oking then accomplishes a de7grading of the second person from a position of power that also always ob*ectifies the 6aw which is degraded in being successfully defied, but also reinstated when its transgression is marked as such. Purdie, S. 0-<<31 Comedy: The Mastery of Discourse, 'emel 'empstead" 'ar!ester #heatsheaf. 0p. :1. ,3. Freud, S. 0-</:1 Some psychical conse+uences of the anatomical distinction between the se%es , in S.E. XIX, pp. /5@7/:@. 6ondon" The 'ogarth Press. The little girl makes her *udgement and her decision in a flash. She has seen it and knows that she is without it and wants to ha!e it. In contrast, when a little boy first catches sight of a girl&s genital region, he begins by showing irresolution and lack of interest2 he sees nothing or disa!ows what he has seen... It is not until later, when some threat of castration has obtained a hold upon him, that the obser!ation becomes important to him... ,5. Ibid p. /:?. ,:. 6acan, G. 0/==/1 The signification of the phallus , in G. 6acan, crits: ! Selection 0translated by Fruce Fink1. ;ew Jork" ;orton, p. /??1. ,>. This identity is in fact nothing more than a numerical e+uality. 6acan, G. 0-<3@1 6a Famille in Encyclo"#die fran$aise, @. ,?. Ibid, For an e%amination of the way 6acan&s te%t on the family comple%es anticipates structuralist conceptions see Ailler, G.7A. 0/==:1 A critical reading of &Family 9omple%es by Gac+ues 6acan ,@. 6acan, G. 0/==/1 The sub!ersion of the sub*ect , in G. 6acan, crits:! Selection 0translated by Fruce Fink1. ;ew Jork" ;orton, p. 3=?. ,<. In current arrangements which circulate around gender , gender assignment is already the signifier of the (ther to which one gi!es one&s consent or not , and the notion of gender identity is more or less e+ui!alent to the genderisation of the mirror stage , which corresponding to the appropriate se% becomes a new conflict7free sphere. Elein, 8. 0/==31 The birth of gender , --, pp. :-7>=.

,-=. 9f." 'owe!er it may ha!e been used, psychoanalysis is not a recommendation for a patriarchal society, but an analysis of one. If we are interested in understanding and challenging the oppression of women, we cannot afford to neglect it. Aitchell, G. 0-<?51 Psychoanalysis and %eminism. 'armondsworth" Penguin. ,--. Foley, B. 0-<<-1 Aoney , in T. Fottomore 0ed.1 ! Dictionary of Mar&ist Thou'ht 0second edition1. (%ford" Fasil Flackwell. The claim that Aar% saw gold as particularly suited to function as a measure of pure e%change !alue by !irtue of its natural properties sits uneasily alongside Aar%&s own scorn for such naturalistic accounts. Aar% comments Hold is now money with reference to all other commodities only because it was pre!iously, with reference to them, a simple commodity. 6ike all other commodities, it was also capable of ser!ing as an e+ui!alent, either as simple e+ui!alent in isolated e%changes, or as particular e+ui!alent by the side of others. Hradually it began to ser!e, within !arying limits, as uni!ersal e+ui!alent. Aar%, E. Ca"ital: ! Criti(ue of Political Economy, Vol I. 6ondon" )!eryman. ,-/. Arthur, 9. G. 0/==:1 The concept of money , )adical Philoso"hy, -35, pp. 3-75=. ,-3. Apartheid South Africa used to pride itself on the fact that that the !alue of the 8and was directly guaranteed by gold, something that draws attention to the way that the problematic of race is implicated in a%es of se% and class in the organi4ation of the world and the conditions for sub*ecti!ity under capitalism. ,-5. Arthur, /==:, p. 33. It is perhaps because this Aar%ist account is e%plicitly 'egelian that the positing of presuppositions 7 gold as the basis of !alue for money 7 chimes so well with 6acan&s reading of Freud, of the phallus as the basis of se%ual difference, a reading that is also riddled with 'egelian categories. ,-:. And, in this argument from G.G.78ou%&s 0-<?31 %reud* Mar&* Economie et Symboli(ue 0Paris" Seuil1, ...the father would become the general e+ui!alent of sub*ects and the logos the general e+ui!alent of linguistic e%changes. ,->. For the phallus is a signifier...it is the signifier that is destined to designate meaning effects as a whole , 6acan, G. 0/==/1 The signification of the phallus , in G. 6acan, crits: ! Selection 0translated by Fruce Fink1. ;ew Jork" ;orton. ,-?. (ne way of conceptuali4ing this is to focus on the role of thirdness in the mo!e from Imaginary to Symbolic, and so reframe the (edipal resolution of the problematic of presence or absence of the penis 0that inaugurates, for girls, or concludes, for boys, the castration comple%12 then it is possible to see this relation to signification as one whose outcome is &symbolic castration&, structuring the sub*ect as pluralistically related 0no longer in a dual relation with the mother1, as se%ed 0no longer being the phallus but rather ha!ing a penis or ha!ing a !agina1, and as capable of finding and combining substitute ob*ects of desire 0rather than claiming the wholeness of totali4ed desire and not desiring at all1. Auller, G. 0-<<>1 +eyond the Psychoanalytic Dyad: De,elo"mental Semiotics in %reud* Peirce and -acan, 6ondon" 8outledge. ,-@. So, we ha!e the definition of man 7 as sub*ect, as desire caused by ob.et a and as phallic .ouissance. And woman$ #e can say that it is the same but with something more. It is 6acan&s reformulation of the Freudian thesis 7 that is to say 7 this writing of feminine phallicism. There is the phallicism of the one 7 to ha!e the phallus. This is what Freud first percei!ed 7 ha!ing the phallus in the

metonymic way. It is always possible for e!eryone 7 for e!ery speaking being, e!en for the feminine one. The way the woman is able to ha!e the phallus 7 metonymically 7 is de!eloped by Freud" she can ha!e the phallus as a child, as money, and so on. And she can ha!e it as the organ of the man and e!en as the man himself. Soler, 9. 0-<<51 Some remarks on the 6o!e 6etter , /ournal of the Centre for %reudian !nalysis and )esearch, 5, pp. :7/5. ,-<. This is why, as Aaud Aannoni puts it, as any analysis proceeds, the &key signifiers& 0death, phallus, ;ame of the Father, etc.1 appear. Aannoni, A. 0-<?31 The Child* his 0Illness* and the 1thers, 'armondsworth" Penguin. There is an e%ample in Aannoni&s case of a si% year old with diagnosis of schi4ophrenia" 9arole&s mirror7play seemed to indicate that she was looking for an unmutilated image of herself. #hen she found herself again in the mirror, it was in effect to signify herself in a phallic signifier 0tongue, nose, or braids1. 0Ibid p. -:=1. In the field of communication, her speech was at first a pri!ate language, a play with words meant for herself alone. ;e%t, when 9arole first attempted to address the (ther, her throat tightened and made all dialogue impossible. Fy touching on the signifiers &father&, &death&, &phallus& in the child&s treatment, a +uestion was brought to light which had originally arisen in the mother2 it was therefore as a function of what was going on in the mother that the child sought to orient herself and got trapped. 0Ibid1. In the course of treatment, interpretations turned fundamentally on the phallic signifier, on death, and on the present7absent play. #e then saw the appearance of signs through which the child was trying to ask herself what the (ther re+uired of her 0Ibid p. -:-1. ,/=.Parkes, A. F. 0-<</1 Pause and Effect: !n Introduction to the History of Punctuation in the 2est 6ondon" Scolar Press. ,/-. Fen!enuto, F. 0-<<51 Concernin' the )ites of Psychoanalysis* 1r the Villa of Mysteries, 9ambridge" Polity Press. ,//. Ibid ,/3. Ibid ,/5. Ibid ,/:. 9hristianity is an e%ample in this case, but this e%ample is not accidental since it is the dominant symbolic resource for the organi4ation of sub*ecti!ity in the world in which psychoanalysis appeared. ,/>. 8i!iere, G. 0-</<1 #omanliness as a mas+uerade. 8eprinted in V. Furgin, G. Bonald and 9. Eaplan 0eds1 0-<@>1 %ormations of %antasy, pp. 3:755. 6ondon" Aethuen. ,/?. For an elaboration of the argument that fetishism is organi4ed around the paternal phallus, see Adams, P. 0-<<>1 The Em"tiness of the Ima'e: Psychoanalysis and Se&ual Differences 6ondon" 8outledge. ,/@. Fenichel, (. 0-<5<1 The symbolic e+uation" Hirl I Phallus , Psychoanalytic 3uarterly, /=, 031, pp. 3=373/5. ,/<. Ibid p. 3=:. ,3=. Ibid p. 3-5.

,3-. Furman, ). 0-<<51 Deconstructin' De,elo"mental Psycholo'y, 6ondon" 8outledge. ,3/.Fenichel, o". cit. p. 3/=. ,33. Ibid ,35. the highly important +uestion arises, whether 'is capacity to see and hear is confined to my person and to what happens around me. 0Schreber, B. P. 0/===1 Memoirs of My 4er,ous Illness, ;ew Jork" ;ew Jork 8e!iew Fooks. ,original published -<=3. 0p. /@-12 hardly a single limb or organ in my body escaped being temporarily damaged by miracles 0Schreber, o"5 cit., p.-5-1. ,3:. 6acan, G. 0/==/1 (n a +uestion prior to any possible treatment of psychosis , in G. 6acan, crits: ! Selection 0translated by Fruce Fink1, pp. :3-7/-5. ;ew Jork" ;orton. ,3>. Ibid ,3?. 6acan, G. 0/==/1 (n a +uestion prior to any possible treatment of psychosis , in G. 6acan, crits: ! Selection 0translated by Fruce Fink1, pp. :3-7/-5. ;ew Jork" ;orton. ,3@. #hen Fink +ualifies this as r#el, he is drawing attention to it as being the kind of reality which is suffused with fantasy, as opposed to the order of the 8eal1, and so they are stuck in the imaginary paths. ,3<. See, for e%ample, 9hesler, P. 0-<?31 2omen and Madness, 6ondon" Allen 6ane2 Dssher, G. 0-<<-1 2omen6s Madness: Miso'yny or Mental Illness7 'emel 'empsted" 'ar!ester #heatsheaf. ,5=. Frousse, A.7'. 0/==31 The push7to7the7woman" A uni!ersal in psychosis$ , Psychoanalytical 4oteboo8s, --, pp. ?<7<@. ,5-. Frousse, p. <-. She is +uite definite that The push7to7the7woman is not to be obser!ed as a phenomenon. In psychosis 0specifically schi4ophrenia1 life and its .ouissance are uncontrolled , for it to ha!e a locus it would ha!e to ha!e a place, and to ha!e a place re+uires a signifier. The feeling of life is not lacking in psychosis in general. There is a feeling of raw life which is there but which isn&t articulated to any symbolic system and therefore signifying mortification does not take a place. The mortification happens through the intermediary of the signifier of life, from which the se%ual organ itself also takes its place 0Ibid p. </1. From 6acan on Schreber, he is &incapable& &of being the phallus that the mother lacks& &he is left with the solution of being the woman that men lack& 0Ibid1. So, #e can en!isage that, in all cases of psychosis, there is a uni!ersal &0not being1 able to be the phallus that the mother lacks& linked to the foreclosure of the ;ame7of7the7Father. Fut not in e!ery case will we find as a solution &being the woman that men lack.& ,5/. Ibid ,53. Ibid ,55. (ne might think of the penis as anchor point of the power of men as a corresponding to the point in history in which the king really imagined that he was a king 7 that is, aristocracy 7 and the shift to the phallus as a symbolic anchoring point as the reconfiguration of this power as that which corresponds to the bourgeoisie. 6acan drew attention to the decline of the paternal imago , and this obser!ation now

bears fruit in the Aillerian school concern with contemporary symptoms. Hou% 0o". cit.1 thinks that such a symbolic mode can be re!ersed or can re!erse itself2 women, then, would ha!e a position as full sub*ects in society. There is then e!en room for fruitful dialogue with Gudith Futler2 The law re+uires conformity to its own notion of nature and gains its legitimacy through the binary and asymmetrical naturali4ation of bodies in which the Phallus, though clearly not identical with the penis, ne!ertheless deploys the penis as its naturali4ed instrument and sign. Futler, G. 0-<<=1 9ender Trouble: %eminism and the Sub,ersion of Identity, 6ondon" 8outledge. 0p. -3:12 Freud enumerates a set of analogies and substitutions that rhetorically affirm the fundamental transferability of that property Futler, G. 0-<<31 +odies That Matter: 1n the Discursi,e -imits of 0Se&, 6ondon" 8outledge. 0p. >/1. ,5:. 6acan, G. 0-<</1 The Ethics of Psychoanalysis :;<;=:;>?: The Seminar of /ac(ues -acan +oo8 VII 0translated with notes by Bennis Porter1. 6ondon" 8outledge, 0published in French -<@>1, p. /<<. 9ompare Freud" #e often ha!e the impression that with the wish for a penis and the masculine protest we ha!e penetrated through all the psychological strata and ha!e reached bedrock, and that thus our acti!ities are at an end. This is probably true, since, for the psychical field, the biological field does in fact play the part of the underlying bedrock. The repudiation of femininity can be nothing else than a biological fact, a part of the great riddle of se%. It would be hard to say whether and when we ha!e succeeded in mastering this factor in an analytic treatment. #e can only console oursel!es with the certainty that we ha!e gi!en the person analysed e!ery possible encouragement to re7e%amine and alter his attitude to it. Freud, S. 0-<3?1 Analysis terminable and interminable , in S.E. XXIII, pp. /->7/:3. 6ondon" The 'ogarth Press. ,5>. 6acan, -<</, o". cit. p.3==. ,5?. 6acan, G. 0/==/1 (n a +uestion prior to any possible treatment of psychosis , in G. 6acan, crits: ! Selection 0translated by Fruce Fink1, pp. :3-7/-5, ;ew Jork" ;orton.