The Other's Demands
Lacan describes 'the Mother the real Other of demand'; and for post-Lacanians, 'demand cannot be conceived independently of the infant's identification with the discourse that the mother expresses in response to the baby's cries, smiles, gurgling, and gestures....The child is also divided from its own real demand by identifying with whatever part of that demand the mother expresses'.
The result in the neurotic may be a dominance of 'the Parental Other, the Other of (or as) demand'; as well as of the objects 'demanded by the Other: grades, diplomas, success, marriage, children - all the things usually associated with anxiety in neurosis'. Lacan considered that for the neurotic 'the demand of the Other assumes the function of an object in his phantasy...this prevalence given by the neurotic to demand'.
Read more about this topic: Demand (psychoanalysis)
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