Freud's Psychoanalytic Theory, coming as it did at the turn of the century, provided a radically new approach to the analysis and treatment of "abnormal" adult behavior. Earlier views tended to ignore behavior and look for a physiological explanation of "abnormality." The novelty of Freud's approach was in recognizing that neurotic behavior is not random or meaningless but goal-directed. Thus, by looking for the purpose behind so-called "abnormal" behavioral patterns, the analyst was given a method for understanding behavior as meaningful and informative, without denying its physiological aspects.
Lacanian Theory
The Imaginary
French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan has reinterpreted Freud in structuralist terms, bringing the theory into the second half of the Twentieth Century. Like Freud, Lacan discusses the importance of the pre-Oedipal stage in the child's life when it makes no clear distinction between itself and the external world; when it harbors no definite sense of self and lives symbiotically with the mother's body. Lacan refers to this stage as the Imaginary.
Lacanian Theory
The Imaginary
French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan has reinterpreted Freud in structuralist terms, bringing the theory into the second half of the Twentieth Century. Like Freud, Lacan discusses the importance of the pre-Oedipal stage in the child's life when it makes no clear distinction between itself and the external world; when it harbors no definite sense of self and lives symbiotically with the mother's body. Lacan refers to this stage as the Imaginary.
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