in the sphere of ideas.”^195 The instinct as soma does not per seleave any trace on the
psyche: it is only through the ideational representatives that the instinct is fixed to
the psyche—hence their role as proxies. Consequently, it is these and not the in-
stincts that are repressed in the unconscious. In addition to representing the con-
tent of the unconscious, being that which is repressed in secondary repression,
ideational representatives also set upthe unconscious tout court,which means that
they are responsible for primal repression. The latter should thus be understood as
the fixationof an instinct to an idea that is not allowed to enter consciousness: “The
representative in question persists unaltered from then onwards and the instinct
remains attached to it.”^196 As Laplanche and Pontalis correctly observe, Freud also
understands such a fixation in terms of a registration(Niederschrift) in the unconscious
of the ideational representative qua sign(Zeich). At this point, it is relatively straight-
forward to see how this scenario could be translated into Lacanese. First, fixation
corresponds to the bond between an image and a need: as we have repeatedly seen,
Lacan understands the sign as a connection between the Imaginary and the Real.
Secondly, the idea of the registration of these imaginary–real signs entails the for-
mation of a series of signs (the repressed ideational representatives) in the uncon-
scious. At the outset, however, this sequence is not yet adequately grouped: in this
way it is possible to relate it to the range of protosymbolic signifiers that are cre-
ated during the dialectic of frustration between the child and the mother. For
Lacan, the protosignifier Desire-of-the-Mother is indeed properly symbolized only
after it has been replaced by the Name-of-the-Father at the end of the Oedipus
complex.
This brings us back to the second set of questions concerning the fundamen-
tal fantasy. What is certain is that, for Lacan, the retroactive character of pre-
Oedipal symbolic processes is equally valid for pre-Oedipal unconscious life. The
unconscious is structured symbolically, hence it will also be formed retroactively:
consequently, one could correctly speak of a “proto-unconscious” which be-
comes unconscious stricto sensuonly later. Freud had already envisaged the retro-
active character of the trauma—of its repression—yet he repeatedly seemed to
fall back into a linear understanding of the emergence of the unconscious. For
instance, as we have just seen, he thought of primal repression as the original
moment at which an ideational representative was denied entry by consciousness:ac-
cording to Freud, consciousness as self-consciousness is already fully formed
when primal repression occurs. Lacan firmly disagrees on this point: the emer-
gence of self-consciousness and the unconscious must be strictly contempo-
raneous. If the unconscious should be thought retroactively, the same applies to
self-consciousness. Pre-Oedipal unconscious life is, at the same time, pre-Oedipal
conscious life: no clear distinction has yet been drawn between the two psychic
tuis.
(Tuis.)
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