Between Self & Others

A person personality constructed by three elements, id, ego, and super-ego. In short, Id is the component that one has since one has born. We can simply say that Id is primitive desire that one has from the inside. Ego is another component that comes from the inside.  Ego is there to control the desire that comes from Id when it turns into reality. Super-ego is the third component that comes from the outside, such as parent, family, and society. These elements function in unconscious, sub-conscious, and conscious state of mind.

When a baby born, the moment when the baby sees his mother, or other persons and things around him, is the moment when he knows he is an “I”. The baby figure out his self as a person because the baby sees “the others”. Hence, to define oneself as an “I”, one indeed need other people.

Lacan in The Mirror Stage also stated that we can only see the fragmented bodies of ours. We can’t see the whole parts of our bodies as unity. We can only see hands as hands, feet as feet. We hardly can see our bodies as a full body. Other people can see us as a unity, but we can only see ourselves as fragmented bodies. The only exception when we can see our bodies fully is when we look at our reflections in the mirror. However what we see in the mirror is illusion. What we see in the mirror is just our reflections.  For Lacan, what an infant identifies in the mirror called as imago. Imago is a kind of Gestalt. Gestalt means form, figure, and character.  Lacan explains that:

“The mirror-image would seem to be threshold pf the visible world, if we go by the mirror disposition that the imago of one’s own body present in hallucinations or dreams, whether it concerns its individual features, or even its infirmities, or its object-projections; or if we observe the role of the mirror apparatus in appearances of the double, in which physical realities, however heterogeneous, are manifested.” (Lacan, Page 443)

Hence, when we see ourselves in the mirror, we create the image that we want to see. In the mirror, we want to see ourselves to be someone that we want to be. For example, when we do make up, we won’t stop make up our faces until we see the image that we want to create in the mirror’s reflection.  Lacan also explains “to regard the function of mirror stage as a particular case of the function of the imago, which is to establish a relation between the organism and ts reality—or, as they say, between the Innenwelt and the Umwelt.” (Lacan, page 443).

The imago then will established as an Ideal-“I”. The ideal-“I” as subject will perpetually struggle throughout his/her life. The ego of an “I” will need the others to be an object. That is how relation between self and others.

Works Cited

Lacan, J. (n.d.). The Mirror Stage as Formative of the Function of the I as Revealed in Psychoanalytic Experience.