1.1 Introduction: The Subject and the Ego
Lacan’s first theory of subjectivity, as developed in the years between the publica-
tion of his doctoral thesis on “self-punishing paranoia” ( 1932 ) and the beginning
of his famous seminar at Saint Anne’s Hospital in Paris ( 1953 ), revolves around the
subject’s imaginary dimension. It is based upon a fundamental, aprioristic distinc-
tion, one that, despite many changes, will remain present in all of Lacan’s succes-
sive theories of subjectivity: the ego is an imaginary construction, and it must be
differentiated from the subject of the unconscious. As Lacan unequivocally asserts
in Seminar I: “If the egois an imaginary function, it is not to be confused with the
subject.”^1 Two elements clearly emerge from this straightforward statement: ( 1 )
the subject cannot be limited to the Imaginary; ( 2 ) one has to comprehend the
manner in which the egoqua imaginary function works in order to avoid inadver-
tently confusing it with the subject (of the unconscious). A third, basic conclusion
that remains implicit here but is often clearly expressed elsewhere should be
drawn: the fact that the subject should not be “confused” with the egoqua imagi-
nary function does not indicate that they are unrelated. On the contrary, it is Lacan’s
main objective to demonstrate how the ego is nothing but a necessaryimaginary
function of the subject, while arguing that the subject cannot be reduced to his
imaginary dimension.
In this chapter, dedicated to the subject of the Imaginary as it is described in
Lacan’s early work, it is therefore my primary intention to provide a precise ac-
count of how the ego comes to be defined as an imaginary function. At this early
stage of my discussion, it is also important to add that, in his first theory of the
subject, Lacan is more concerned with disclosing the functioning of the ego than
he is with delineating the structure of the subject of the unconscious that is irre-
ducible to it: the latter emerges only in an indirect, negative manner as a conse-
quence of what is attributed to the former. It is in fact only in the mid-195 0s that
the subject of the unconscious will be treated directly by Lacan in the context of a
new theory of subjectivity that will shift the axes of his research from the order of
the Imaginary to the Symbolic. From then on, despite the subsequent preeminence
acquired by the order of the Real in the early 196 0s, the subject of the unconscious
will remain central to Lacan’s later theory of subjectivity.
If on the one hand, in Lacan’s early work, the distinction between the ego and
the subject of the unconscious is, as I have pointed out, an a priori working hy-
pothesis that is yet to be proved, on the other hand, it may properly be grasped
only if it is considered from the very beginning as a critique of mainstream post-
Freudian psychoanalysis (especially the so-called “ego psychology”). Authors
such as Hartmann, Kris, and Loewenstein seemed in fact to maintain a substantial