Jacques Lacan was a French psychiatrist who specialized in psychoanalysis. He developed theories on the imaginary, symbolic, and real structures of human psychology. Lacan believed human thought processes could be mapped by dividing perceptions into these three categories. Throughout his career, Lacan focused on further developing our understanding of the imaginary, symbolic, and real and how they influence human behavior and thought.

1. Jacques
Lacan.
1901-1981

2. Biography.
Jacques Lacan was a French born Psychiatrist who
specialised in psycho analysis. He was dubbed “the
most controversial Psycho-analyser since Freud. His
works on critical theory, literary theory and linguistics
helped further his and many others understanding of
post structuralism. he entered medical school and, in
1926, specialised in psychiatry at the Sainte-Anne
Hospital in Paris, this is where he began his interests in
the philosophies of Karl Jaspers and Martin Heidegger.

3. The Imaginary, symbolic, the
Real.
• Of these three terms, the 'imaginary' was the first to appear,
well before the Rome Report of 1953. The basis of the
Imaginary order is the formation of the ego in the “mirror
stage“.
• Lacan's concept of the symbolic "owes much to a key event
in the rise of structuralism. As the symbolic is
representative of what it stands for, Symbolism and signage
links together really closely and this is touched on in
Lacan’s later theories.
• Lacan returned to the theme of the Real in 1953 and
continued to develop it until his death. The Real, for Lacan,
is not synonymous with reality. There is no symbolic
without the Real.

4. Main Area of Study
• As a Psychoanalyser he specialised in the thought
process of human beings and helped create a map of
thought processes by dividing the things we see in 3
sections. He focused for much of his life on the 3
separates. He was in fact a doctor so he had a degree
that allowed him to closely work in medical form with
people medically.

5. Anthology.

6. How does this apply to us?
• As media studies student it is important for us
to be able to understand the way we see things
so without the differentiation of The Real
(sign) the Symbolism (the representation) and
the imaginary (the tangent). As media studies
is the study of signs.

7. Quote.