memory: otherwise Imago/ 1.

memory vs identification.

 

 

 

"...the human babies, at an age when for a brief period—yet for a period nonetheless—is surpassed in instrumental intelligence by the chimpanzee, already recognize, however, their own image as such in the mirror... One need only understand the mirror stage as an identification in the full sense that psychoanalysis gives to this term: namely, as the transformation produced in the subjects when they assumes an image, whose predestination to this phase effect is already indicated by the use, in the theory, of the ancient term imago."[1]

 

 

Well before six months of age, babies[2] are able to grasp 'the mirror' – or even the smartphone in selfie mode – as indispensable to manufacturing the effect of their own 'image', which precisely reflects back a non-unifying mode of presence.

And it is interesting to note how babies perceive the other's voice—even when looking in the mirror near them—as coming from the 'body' of the other and not 'from the mirror': so that it is the body's memory that judges the image in the mirror, but does not identify with it.

How then does that crossroads - thus not a primary one—become possible between memory—which belongs only to the body—and imagination—which alienates from the body, and therefore from the other—to manufacture 'desire'?

It is the issue of removal, an insufficient and painful, yet correctable option of thinking: or an unmodifiable ontology.

 

Marina Bilotta Membretti/ Cernusco sul Naviglio – June 1, 2026

TutorSalus.net - Freudian journalism

 

 

[1] Taken from “Lo stadio dello specchio come formatore della funzione dell’io”, pp.87-88 in ‘Jacques Lacan. Scritti – Vol.I’ edited by Giacomo B. Contri/ ‘Biblioteca Einaudi’ Giulio Einaudi editore Spa (2002). 

[2] ‘Inherit from a child. Why not ?’, Marina Bilotta Membretti/ NeP edizioni Srls (2024) – Chapter 3/ ‘A four-stroke start ? p.82