Anticipation and Identification : A Comment on Lacan’s « Mirror Stage »

In "The Mirror Stage", Lacan describes the process of identification in terms of a combination between "insufficiency" and "anticipation". The infant precipitates from his motoric and language impotence towards an anticipation of an identity, which is, in first instance, supported by the image. In recognising himself in the image, in identifying with the image, the infant anticipates a totality but at the meantime he alienates himself in the image. The image, as a rigid structure, will never adequately "re-present" the subject, but it will nevertheless serve to escape the situation of a "corps morcelé", of a non-unified, a non-totalized body. This paper analyses the relation between insufficiency and anticipation on the basis of Lacan's article. The broader aim is to embed this psychoanalytical viewpoint in a more general theory of complexly organized dynamical systems. In this approach, cohesive forms or structures, such as human subjects, agents, or psychic structures, are considered to take shape at various levels in a developmental history in which the mechanisms of identification and anticipation play a crucial role.