Jacques Lacan was a French psychoanalyst who specialized in psychiatry after attending medical school in 1920. Some of Lacan's notable ideas included the mirror stage, which describes the formation of self through identification with one's mirror image. Lacan also explored concepts like the real, symbolic, and imaginary, referring to different orders of experience or reality. He received his license as a forensic psychiatrist in 1931 and married in 1934, having two children.

1. Jacques Lacan By Natalie Graham

2. Early Life Jacques Lacan was born in Paris, the eldest child of three born to Emilie and Alfred Lacan. He attended the Collège Stanislas, a well-known Jesuit high school. By the mid-1920s, Lacan's growing anti-religious sentiment led to tensions with his Catholic family. Lacan went directly into medical school in 1920, specializing in psychiatry from 1926. He took his clinical training at Sainte-Anne, the major psychiatric hospital in central Paris. He was particularly interested in the work of Karl Jaspers and Martin Heidegger. In 1931 Lacan received his license as a forensic psychiatrist, and a few years later in January 1934 , he married Marie-Louise Blondin, who gave birth to their first child, Caroline, the same month. Another child, Thibaut, was born in August 1939.

3. Notable Ideas The Mirror Stage Lacan described this as ‘formative of the function of the I as revealed in psychoanalytic experience.’ It illustrates the conflictual nature of the dual relationship; which not only refers to the relationship between the Ego and The Body, but also between The Imaginary and The Real. The Real The Symbolic The Imaginary