Psychoanalysis between the “Passion of the Real” and the Semblant

Abstract

The semblant is a term forged by Lacan in the last period of his teaching in order to rework the relation between the symbolic and the real. The introduction of this notion into psychoanalysis charts a momentous shift in Lacan’s teaching from the symbolic to the real as a focal point of psychoanalysis. Indeed, for psychoanalysis the question of the real is inseparable from the interrogation of the semblant, insofar as, for Lacanian psychoanalysis, the path of access to the real is none other than that of the semblant. This is why although the semblant is relevant to numerous contemporary discourses, it is only in psychoanalysis that this term was elevated to the level of concept. On the other hand, however, the semblant is a problem specific to psychoanalysis. There is indeed a special problem with the semblant in psychoanalysis. Omnipresent, unsettling, yet unresolved, the problem of the semblant comes to the fore at critical moments in the history of psychoanalysis, thereby marking turning points at which the orientation of psychoanalysis is at stake. While one of our aims is to briefly outline the development of the Lacanian concept of the semblant and to draw attention to some difficulties that highlight the ambiguous status that the semblant has in psychoanalysis, we also wish to emphasise the relation between the real and the semblant as being the crux of Lacan’s later teaching.