The drive circuit as generator of subjectivation

It is a fact that Freud almost systematically refrained from using the term 'subject' in his work. However, one remarkable exception is worthy of our attention: in 'Instincts and their vicissitudes' (1915), he repeatedly refers to the notion of subject (Subjekt) whenever he is dealing with one common 'vicissitude' (destiny) of basic drive pairs, the one in which there is a succession of the 'turning round upon one's own body' and the 'reversal of the aim into its opposite', i.e. the search for satisfaction in a passive mode (to get looked at, taken in hand etc.); here Freud designates the indispensable exterior agent of the active drive as a 'new subject'. The author finds in this the beginnings of a specifically psychoanalytic conception of the subject function, the latter gaining its substance from being agent of the drive interplay itself, with its unconscious dimension, and thus distinguishing itself from the functions reserved to the ego. He suggests that the originating matrix of the process of subjectivation be located between the infant's instinctual reaching out and the parental partner's response, which will take on more and more signifying value. The treatment of a bulimic patient is presented to illustrate the problems of a process of subjectivation that must develop by overcoming the trap of oral servitude.