The Lacanian Unconscious (1 of 4) : The trans subjective

The Lacanian unconscious, as the discourse of the Other, cannot be reduced either to notions of an individual (or intrapsychic ) unconscious or to Jungian notions of the collective unconscious. It is, by contrast, a transsubjective unconscious. We discuss a series of overlapping Lacanian concepts (the big Other, the idea that desire is always the desire of the Other, the Che vuoi ( What do you want ) formula of fantasy) as a way of getting a better sense of what a transsubjective unconscious might mean. Playfully extrapolating from LeviStrauss s (alleged) idea that one should not confuse the contents of the stomach for its processes we say much the same in respect of the unconscious. In other words, rather than objectifying the unconscious, considering it a thing, a type of intrapsychic space, a collection such as a repository of id impulses and memories we should grasp it as a series of symbolic, linguistic processes. Such processes, chiefly o