In
Lacanianism, demand () is the way in which instinctive needs are alienated through language and signification. The concept of demand was developed by Lacan—outside of Freudian theory—in conjunction with need and desire in order to account for the role of speech in human aspirations,
and forms part of the Lacanian opposition to the approach to
language acquisition
Language acquisition is the process by which humans acquire the capacity to perceive and comprehend language. In other words, it is how human beings gain the ability to be aware of language, to understand it, and to produce and use words and s ...
favored by
ego psychology
Ego psychology is a school of psychoanalysis rooted in Sigmund Freud's structural id-ego-superego model of the mind.
An individual interacts with the external world as well as responds to internal forces. Many psychoanalysts use a theoretical c ...
.
Language acquisition
For Lacan, demand is the result of language acquisition on physical needs – the individual's wants are automatically filtered through the alien system of external signifiers.
Where traditionally
psychoanalysis
PsychoanalysisFrom Greek language, Greek: and is a set of theories and techniques of research to discover unconscious mind, unconscious processes and their influence on conscious mind, conscious thought, emotion and behaviour. Based on The Inte ...
had recognised that learning to speak was a major step in the ego's acquisition of power over the world, and celebrated its capacity for increasing instinctual control, Lacan by contrast stressed the more sinister side of man's early submergence in language.
He argued that "demand constitutes the Other as already possessing the 'privilege' of satisfying needs", and that indeed the child's biological needs are themselves altered by "the condition that is imposed on him by the existence of the discourse, to make his need pass through the defiles of the signifier". Thus even in speaking one's demands, the latter are altered; and even when they are met, the child finds that it no longer wants what it thought it wanted.
Desire
In Lacanian thought, a demand results when a
lack in
the Real
In continental philosophy, the Real refers to reality in its unmediated form. In Lacanian psychoanalysis, it is an "impossible" category because of its inconceivability and opposition to expression.
In depth psychology
The Real is the ...
is transformed into
the Symbolic
In Lacanian psychoanalysis, the Symbolic (or Symbolic Order of the Borromean knot) is the order in the unconscious that gives rise to subjectivity and bridges intersubjectivity between two subjects; an example is Jacques Lacan's idea of desire as ...
medium of
language
Language is a structured system of communication that consists of grammar and vocabulary. It is the primary means by which humans convey meaning, both in spoken and signed language, signed forms, and may also be conveyed through writing syste ...
. Demands faithfully express
unconscious signifying formations, but always leave behind
a residue or kernel of
desire
Desires are states of mind that are expressed by terms like "wanting", "wishing", "longing" or "craving". A great variety of features is commonly associated with desires. They are seen as propositional attitudes towards conceivable states of affa ...
, representing a lost surplus of
jouissance for the
subject, (because the Real is never totally symbolizable).
As a result, for Lacan, "desire is situated in dependence on demand – which, by being articulated in signifiers, leaves a
metonymic remainder which runs under it". The frustration inherent in demand – whatever is actually asked for is 'not it' – is what gives rise to desire.
The Other's demands
The demands of human society are initially mediated via the Mother;
[Lacan, ''Ecrits'' p. 321] with the discourse of whom the infant comes to identify, subsuming its own non-verbal self-expression.
The result in the neurotic may be a dominance of parental demand, and of the social objects valued by such demands – jobs, degrees, marriage, success, money and the like. Lacan considered indeed that for the neurotic "the demand of the Other assumes the function of an object in his phantasy...this prevalence given by the neurotic to demand".
Transference
Lacan considered that the
transference
Transference () is a phenomenon within psychotherapy in which repetitions of old feelings, attitudes, desires, or fantasies that someone displaces are subconsciously projected onto a here-and-now person. Traditionally, it had solely co ...
appears in the forms of demands from the patient – demands which he stressed the analyst must resist.
Through such demands, he states,
François Roustang
François () is a French masculine given name and surname, equivalent to the English name Francis.
People with the given name
* François Amoudruz (1926–2020), French resistance fighter
* François-Marie Arouet (better known as Voltaire; ...
however has challenged the Lacanian view, arguing that the patient's demand, rather than undermining the analysis, may be a positive attempt to get the analyst to shift their therapeutic stance.
[Jan Campbell, ''Psychoanalysis and the Time of Life'' (2006) p. 84]
See also
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Demand (Psychoanalysis)
Psychoanalytic terminology
Jacques Lacan
Post-structuralism
Structuralism