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R Schema

The L Schema elaborated into a fuller picture of how reality (the field of ordinary phenomenal experience) is constructed over the Real by the interaction of the Symbolic and Imaginary orders.

The R Schema is a parallelogram with diagonal cross-bracing. Where the L Schema diagrammed the subject's relation to the Other, R Schema diagrams the constitution of the field of reality itself.

The diagram

                S ─────────────── i ─────────────── M
                │                  ╲              ╱
                │                   ╲    R       ╱
                │      Symbolic      ╲          ╱     Imaginary
                │     ─ ─ ─ ─ ─       ╲        ╱      ─ ─ ─ ─ ─
                │                      ╲      ╱
                │                       ╲    ╱
                │           a' ──────────╲  ╱─────────  m
                │                         ╲╱
                │                         ╱╲
                │                        ╱  ╲
                │                       ╱    ╲
                │                      ╱      ╲
                │           a ────────╱────────╲────────  P
                │                    ╱          ╲
                │      Real         ╱            ╲   ego ideal
                │     ─ ─ ─ ─       ╱              ╲   axis
                │                  ╱      I         ╲
                │                 ╱                  ╲
                ─────────────────                    ─────
                I ─────────────── ι ─────────────── A
                                  (insidescription /
                                   foreclosure point)

A clearer working description (the ASCII can only suggest):

  • Top-left corner: S — the Subject of the Symbolic
  • Top-right corner: M — the Mother (or maternal signifier; the originally desired object)
  • Bottom-left corner: I — the Ego Ideal (capital-I "Ideal")
  • Bottom-right corner: A — the big Other
  • The interior is bounded by these four corners and divided diagonally:
    • Diagonal S → A: the Symbolic axis
    • Diagonal M → I (top-right to bottom-left): the Imaginary axis
    • The two diagonals cross in the middle
  • The interior region between the diagonals is the field of Reality — what the subject experiences as ordinary phenomenal world
  • a, a', i, m label points at the intersections — different positions in the imaginary axis (ego, mirror image, imaginary other)
  • Bottom edge: where the Name of the Father (P, Père) inscribes, locking the structure

What it claims

  1. Reality is constructed, not given. The field of Reality is the interior of the R Schema — bounded on all sides by symbolic and imaginary structuration.
  2. The Real is what's outside. What the schema excludes from the interior is the Real proper — the Real is not on the diagram as a region but as the outside against which the diagram is drawn.
  3. The Mother and Ego Ideal are corner-positions of the imaginary axis. Reality is structured between the imaginary identification with the original maternal object and the imaginary projection of an ideal self.
  4. The Name of the Father inscribes at A. The bottom-right corner — where the symbolic axis terminates — is where the paternal signifier locks in. This is what's foreclosed in Psychosis (see I Schema).

Where Lacan introduces / develops it

  • Écrits: "On a Question Prior to Any Possible Treatment of Psychosis" (1958). The schema is given here in final form.
  • Implicit reference in Seminar III (Seminar III · The PsychosesJacques Lacan · 1955) — though the schema as drawn doesn't appear there, the structure it codifies is being worked out.

Concepts deployed

Subject · Mother · Ego Ideal · The big Other · Name of the Father · Reality · Real · Symbolic · Imaginary · Foreclosure

Interpretive traps

  1. Reading the schema as a map of psychic content. The R Schema is a structural diagram. The corners are positions, not contents.
  2. Locating the Real inside the schema. The Real is what the schema excludes. Reality (the interior) is a function of the symbolic and imaginary holding the Real at bay.

See also