Concept
Name-of-the-Father
In Lacan's teaching, the signifier of the symbolic father. It is neither the real father nor his image, but the function of law and prohibition that separates the child from the mother and anchors the subject in the symbolic order; the French nom ('name') puns on non ('no'). Lacan first named it in the Rome discourse of 1953, as the support of the symbolic function. In the 1958 essay on the treatment of psychosis he wrote it as the paternal metaphor: the Name-of-the-Father takes the place of the mother's desire, and this substitution produces the phallic signification. He held that its foreclosure from the place of the Other, and the failure of the metaphor that follows, is the essential condition of psychosis and what sets psychosis apart from neurosis. From 1963 he spoke of the Names-of-the-Father in the plural.
- Introduced by
- Jacques Lacan
- Key works
- 1
- Related
- Metaphor
introduced by
- Jacques Lacan 1953 In the Rome discourse of 1953, Lacan names the father's name as the support of the symbolic function, which identifies the father with the law. In 1958 he develops it as the paternal metaphor.
derives from
- Metaphor 1958 In his 1958 essay on psychosis, Lacan casts the Name-of-the-Father in the form of his metaphor: it substitutes for the mother's desire and so produces the phallic signification. Psychosis follows when this signifier is foreclosed and the paternal metaphor fails.