Weekly Blog #6 Psychoanalysis

While I have heard about Freud endless times, I have not studied Lacan, but found his ideas very interesting, and speaking of mirrors, it mirrored some things I have seen in my life. The mirror stage in which there is an abstraction of self, sets a precedent of defining you from a perception of you. Now, the image in the mirror is only a signifier. It is not the real thing, or person.
This child is desiring to fulfill the mother’s desires, as Lacan says, and goes through a stage of desiring what others desire. This was the most interesting part to me because I found that it not only in child development, but lasts throughout lifetime. Whereas there are advantages and disadvantages, it is a very human characteristic varying in degrees due to personality type. To want to please others takes a desire to fulfill their needs as best possible. To know those needs best, we sometimes take on too much, trying to understand them so much that we are now in agreement, and we too desire their desires. While compassionate at the source, it is tricky at the end because we no longer are sure of what we, as individuals, desire apart from them. This is why we take the saying, “just be yourself” into account, yet we know most of the time it is inevitable to be formfitting to the person across the table, especially on a first date.