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Jacques LacanSeminar II

The Ego in Freuds Theory and in the Technique of Psychoanalysis

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Bluma Zeigarnik (1901-1988)

Zeigarnik was soviet psychologist andpsychiatrist.

Born into a Lithuanian Jewish family inPrienai, Kovno Governorate Zeigarnikmatriculated from the Berlin University in1927.

She described the Zeigarnik effect in adiploma prepared under the supervision of

Kurt Lewin. In the 1930s, she worked with Lev Vygotsky

at the All-Union Institute of ExperimentalMedicine (AUIEM, aka VIEM).

During World War II, she assisted AlexanderLuria in repairing head injuries.

She was a co-founder of the Moscow StateUniversity Department of Psychology andthe All-Russian Seminars in

Psychopathology. Died in Moscow at the age of 87.

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Zeigarnik effect

In psychology, the Zeigarnik effect (less common: Ovsiankina-Effect) states that peopleremember uncompleted or interrupted tasks better than completed tasks. In Gestaltpsychology, the Zeigarnik effect has been used to demonstrate the general presence ofGestalt phenomena: not just appearing as perceptual effects, but also present incognition.

Zeigarnik first studied the phenomenon after her professor, Gestalt psychologist KurtLewin, noticed that a waiter had better recollections of still unpaid orders. However,after the completion of the taskafter everyone had paidhe was unable to

remember any more details of the orders. However, several studies attempting toreplicate Zeigarnik's experiment, done later in other countries, failed to find significantdifferences in recall between finished and unfinished (interrupted) tasks (e.g. VanBergen, 1968).

The advantage of remembrance can be explained by looking at Lewinsfield theory: atask that has already been started establishes a task-specific tension, which improvescognitive accessibility of the relevant contents. This tension that has formerly beenestablished is being relieved upon completion of the task. In case of task interruptionthe reduction of tension is being impeded. Through continuous tension the content iseasier accessible and it can be easily remembered.

The Zeigarnik effect suggests that students who suspend their study, during which theydo unrelated activities (such as studying unrelated subjects or playing games), willremember material better than students who complete study sessions without a break(Zeigarnik, 1927; McKinney 1935).

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Sren Aabye Kierkegaard (1813-1855)

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Kierkegaard

recollection vs repetition

Kirkegaardian concept of repetition

arises in the context of self-development

Dillema of selfhood:

How does one reconcile the fact that the

self changes over time, yet maintains its

apparent unity?

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The idea of repetition is influenced by twoGreek theories:

1.Theory of motion, actually, theimpossibility of motion affirmed by Eleatics,notably Zeno and Parmenides.

It was asserted that motion is impossible,because if a man wants to go from point A topoint B, he must first traverse a midwaypointcall it Xto get there. However, hecannot get to X unless he first gets to amidway point between A and X, and so forth.This reason is applied ad infinitum.

Therefore motion is impossible, an illusion.

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2. The Plato's idea of recollection, which has to dowith knowledge acquisition.

In the Phaedo we find Socrates discoursing on the

acquisition of knowledge as a recollection of things froma previous incarnation. Ostensibly, this idea is put forthby Socrates as a way to comfort his friends. That is, if aman can learn anything he must have already knownsomething about what he is going to learn or he wouldnot be equipped to learn anything. And if he has known

something without having been taught it (in this life), hemust have learned it before his birth. And if the soulexisted prior to birth it stands to reason that it survivesdeath, and thus his friends have no cause for grief. Thisinnate and prior knowledge is triggered intoconsciousness by sensory input. Plato is striving to

work beyond a two-fold paradox. Namely, if a persondoes not know something, he cannot learn it since heknows nothing about it. If, on the other hand, he knowsit, he does not need to learn it. Plato uses recollection toget beyond this problematical hurdle.

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Kierkegaards contention with recollection is twofold:

1. It amounts to an avoidance of time. In recollection

one sneaks back out of life into the eternal and thusrecollection refuses to acknowledge our temporality asan essential constitutive of being.

2. As a Christian, Kierkegaard contests any immanent

anchoring of the self in recollected truth due to sin: sinintroduces a break between God and man and so thetruth is obscured, hence the Christian must rely onrevelation in the form of the incarnation in which Godbecomes man and reveals the truth.

(To intuit the truth within is a pagan idea)

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Kierkegaards Repetition(1843)A venture in experimenting psychology by Constantin Constantius

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Summary

Kierkegaard opposes the pagan doctrine of

recollection, which implies an immanent

relation to the eternal, to the Christian

doctrine of repetition - a relation that relieson God breaking into time.

In recollection, our contingent identity is

subordinated to our unchanging and

eternal nature; in repetition our unchangingnature depends precisely upon our ability

to entertain change.

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Lacansreworking of the

Wiederholungszwang

The basis for Lacansre-reading of the

repetition compulsion is language. The

repetition compulsion refers to the way

the subject is forced to repeat variouspositions or roles given in advance by

the signifying chain. That is to say, the

subjects position is preordained,determined by the route the signifier

takes.

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This discourse of the other is not thediscourse of the abstract other [] it is thediscourse of the circuit in which I amintegrated. I am one of its links. It is thediscourse of my father for instance, in sofar as my father made mistakes which I am

absolutely condemned to reproducethats what we call the super-ego. I amcondemned to reproduce them because Iam obliged to pick up again the discourse

he bequeathed to me [] because onecant stop the chain of discourse.

(SII, p. 89)

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Lacan

reminiscence vs repetition