Lacan followed Saussure’s structural linguistics and integrates Saussure’s theories in his own opinions. Lacan thought the unity with mother’s body is our primordial experience, all desire is determined by this original lost unity which is unattainable even though all desired objects are signifying it. Desired objects are just substitutes for the unattainable goal. Desire, stay in the conscious but influenced by unconscious, moves along the chain of desired objects, a chain of signifiers which circulates unceasingly without anchorage, in the chain of signifiers, one signifier can point to another signifier, but never the signified. Like the function of dictionary, one word can give you an explanation composed of other words, but never the object signified by the word. As to Lacan, this is unconscious. He compared a bar separating the signifier from the signified to the bar separating consciousness from the unconscious. Unconscious can be signified but never be inaccessible. Unconscious is neither primordial nor instinctual, it’s a group of elements of the signifier, a group of all the existence. Lacan used an example of two same doors with different signs to symbolize how signifier and signified reinforce each other’s function. Through the story of a little boy and a little girl who notice the signifiers signifying the opposite sex, I think Lacan believed every child develops their comprehension of the nomination of objects and the relation between the signifier and signified in the process of nomination.

As “the most controversial psycho-analyst since Freud”, Lacan pointed out that Freud’s works indicate “connection” and “substitution” of signifier to explain unconscious. Lacan believed “significance of the dream” can be obtained by us because we take dream-images as signifiers, the linguistic structure is fundamental for the interpretation of dreams. This thought is based on the two principal mechanisms posed by Freud—condensation and displacement—which are naturally linguistic phenomena. The signification is condensed by metaphor or displaced by metonymy.

Lacan thought the order and methods of psychoanalytic mediation of Freud were no longer true. Freud believed “where the unconscious was, consciousness shall go”. Freud hoped to merge the unconscious into consciousness to dispel the depression and neurosis. Freud emphasized on the integration of “ego” and consciousness, which could become stronger than unconscious. But Lacan deemed “ego” could not replace or control unconscious, he thought “ego” was just an illusion, a product of unconscious itself. He elaborated in his essay on the mirror stage, a psychoanalytic theory which explains the process of an infant obtaining the illusion of the “ego” from the mirror and how he induces apperception of a whole integrity. Then we can know the human subjectivity is inherent. Although a child can get the conception of “ego”, he takes the image in the mirror as “himself”, but it’s not the reality, what shows in the mirror is only an image, an incorrect identification, this concept in the psychoanalytic theory of Lacan shows that the “ego” is the product of misunderstanding.