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L Schema

A four-corner diagram showing how the Subject's relation to the Other is blocked and deflected by the Imaginary axis between Ego and other.

The diagram

   S ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─  a'
   (subject:                              (ego, imaginary
   the unconscious that speaks)            other, mirror image)
       │                            ╱
       │                         ╱
       │                      ╱
       │                   ╱       (imaginary axis: blocks
       │                ╱            the symbolic axis below)
       │             ╱
       │          ╱
       │       ╱
       │    ╱
       │ ╱
       a ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─  A
   (little other:                          (the big Other:
   imaginary peer)                         language, law, the
                                           symbolic order)
  • Solid line S → A: the symbolic axis — where speech-as-the-subject would address the Other.
  • Solid line a → a': the imaginary axis — the ego addressing its mirror-image other.
  • Dashed line: the imaginary axis intercepts and deflects the symbolic axis. The subject's address to the Other (S → A) is captured by the ego-other relation (a → a') before it reaches A.

What it claims

  1. The Subject (S) is the speaking subject of the unconscious — not the conscious "I." S is what speaks in slips, dreams, symptoms.
  2. The Ego (a') is not the subject. The ego is an imaginary construct, an other (it's on the lowercase-a side).
  3. The big Other (A) is the symbolic order — language, law, the locus of the Signifier.
  4. Communication ostensibly between two egos (a ↔ a') is really the unconscious S addressing A. But the imaginary axis blocks the symbolic — most of what passes between people is imaginary capture, not symbolic communication.
  5. Analytic implication: the analyst occupies the position of A (the Other). The analysand's speech is meant to address A (the unconscious as discourse of the Other) but mostly addresses a' (the analyst-as-imaginary-other). The analytic work is to free the symbolic axis from imaginary capture.

Where Lacan introduces / develops it

  • Seminar II: The Ego in Freud's Theory — first articulation
  • Seminar III: The Psychoses (Seminar III · The PsychosesJacques Lacan · 1955) — heavy use; in psychosis, the symbolic axis (S → A) is structurally not available because the Name of the Father is foreclosed
  • Écrits: "The Function and Field of Speech and Language" (1953) and "On a Question Prior to Any Possible Treatment of Psychosis" (1958) — formal development

Concepts deployed

Subject · Ego · The big Other · Little Other · Symbolic · Imaginary · Signifier · Mirror Stage · Foreclosure

Interpretive traps

  1. Confusing S (subject) and a (ego) — Lacan's most basic move. The subject is not the ego. The ego is on the imaginary diagonal (a').
  2. Reading L Schema as a model of communication — it's a model of failed communication. The imaginary axis blocks the symbolic; ordinary social interaction does not transmit unconscious truth.
  3. Treating A as God / authority — A is not an authority figure. A is the locus of language, the place from which the Signifier comes. It is impersonal.
  4. Forgetting it's an early model — Schema L is preserved in later Lacan but augmented. By <em>Encore</em>, the Borromean Knot supplants it as the structural figure.

See also