Picture of the Self

Freud's Classic Trinity of the Psyche:

1. Id
2. Ego
3. Superego

Unconscious = instinctual, unknowable to the subject

Lacan's Theory

'The unconscious is structured as a language.' (Jacques Lacan, 1901-81)

Stages of Psychic Maturation (by Lacan)

• Imaginary
• Symbolic
• Real

--> Unconscious functions by signs, symbols, and in this sense it is 'like' a language.

--> unconscious only comes to exist after language is acquired

 Stage 1 - The Imaginery of the 'Self'

• Mirror Phase =The sense of self arrives externally, from a reflection or from imaginary.
  (--> Between 6 to 18 months, the infant makes its first startling discovery of itself in the mirror as an image which appears total and coherent.)

• Identity comes from mis-recognition, a false persuasion of Self, which remains with us as an ideal ego for the rest of our lives. 

• The mirror supplies the first signified and the infant itself acts as the signifier.
   --> Lacan is saying that we are imprisoned not in reality but in a hall-of-mirrors world of signifiers.

Stage 2 - Symbolic Order

• Symbolic order = refers to the system of pre-existing social structures into which the child is born, such as kinship, rituals, gender roles and indeed language itself.

• Identity assumed at the Imaginary phase is finally constructed by the symbolic order, the realm of the Father who prohibits the mother-child "incest" relationship.
  --> patriarchal order
  --> oedipal murderous conflict
  --> THIS THEORY EXCLUDES WOMEN

The self-reflection

Cooley, 1902 

--> 'looking-glass self' = we see ourselves add if we were reflected in the eyes of other people

Guthrie

The judgements we make about others can come true simply because we have made them. If we decide that someone is unpleasant, we treat them as such and they are almost bound to respond unpleasantly.
-->LOOK AT STEREOTYPES

Jacobson & Rosenthal, 1968

'Self-fulfilling Prophecy'
The self-concept depends on the type of interaction that we have with other people and on the expectations that they have for us.

Existentialism

 Heidegger (1889- 1976)

Being and Time (1927) - concerned with the way in which human beings relate to the world
Experience of Dasein ('concern')

Sartre (1905-80)

Being and Nothingness (1943)
No Exit (1945) --> 'Hell is other people.'