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The enigmatic signifier and the decentred subject
1North Pacific Institute for Analytical Psychology, USA. Ladson3@comcast.net
The Journal of Analytical Psychology
|October 21, 2009
Summary
Modern upheaval challenges notions of progressive development, suggesting a "decentered" subject influenced by enigmatic adult messages. Psychoanalytic theory explores how these early, often sexualized, unconscious communications shape subjectivity and drive attempts at translation.
Area of Science:
- Psychoanalytic theory
- Developmental psychology
- Subjectivity studies
Background:
- Challenges to Enlightenment ideals and teleological views of progress.
- Emerging concept of a 'decentered' subject interacting with enigmatic 'Otherness'.
- Jean Laplanche's metapsychology of infant helplessness and enigmatic messages.
Observation:
- Infants receive early, often sexualized and unconscious, messages from adults ('primal seduction').
- Inability to fully process these messages leads to 'primal repression', forming the unconscious core of subjectivity.
- These repressed messages act as enigmatic signifiers, disrupting psychological life.
Findings:
- The unconscious core of subjectivity is shaped by untranslatable, enigmatic adult messages from infancy.
- Psychoanalytic exploration reveals these enigmas manifesting in transference as 'gaps and monsters'.
- Transformative laughter emerges as a crucial response to deciphering these early enigmatic signifiers.
Implications:
- Understanding 'primal seduction' and 'primal repression' is key to comprehending subject development.
- The enigmatic signifier plays a vital role in psychological development and the formation of the subject.
- Clinical analysis of transference can illuminate the impact of early enigmatic messages on psychic life.
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