Relação de objeto e constituição subjetiva : considerações sobre o objeto a em Jacques Lacan

Abstract

This research aims to investigate Jacques Lacan’s concept of object a, from his early writings to his Seminar, book 11: the four fundamental concepts of psychoanalysis (1964). We depart from the hypothesis according to which, despite being an original elaboration, Lacan’s object a is conceived against the background of an extensive dialogue with different authors from the psychoanalytic tradition – in particular Karl Abraham, Melanie Klein, and D. W. Winnicott –, who also dealt with the problem of the object. Firstly, we analyze the period from 1932 to 1955 with the purpose of clarifying a conception of object linked to the imaginary dimension, as well as its relations with narcissism and the mirror stage. Then, we examine the seminar on object relations, from which we can extract a purely symbolic concept of object: the lack of object. We also bring forth some considerations on fantasy’s object a, which contemplates both imaginary and symbolic. We perceive, nevertheless, that the concept of object a could not cast aside the register of the real. And it is the notion of das Ding that allows us to approach the real, which will be revisited in the seminar on anxiety through its incidences on a new conception of the body. It is precisely this reappraisal of the body – from then on referred to as flesh – that enables the emergence of the object a as object cause of desire. The latter takes on four different forms: breast, feces, gaze, and voice. We privilege, in the last chapter of the thesis, the scopic and vocal objects as essential to subjective constitution. Furthermore, after showing that some features of autism can be explained by the non-extraction of the object a, we suggest that objects, generally speaking, might be used in the treatment of this psychopathology. Lastly, we sustain that object relations are inherent to mental constitution, as long as an original formulation of object – such as the Lacanian object a – is taken into consideration.