Love is a universal experience at the heart of human life, yet each of us experiences it with different motivations and maneuvers. Why are some drawn to passionate, dramatic love, while others fear commitment and love?
Jacques Lacan defines love as “trying to give someone else something you don’t have.” This saying suggests that the experience of love stems from a lack. The neurotic subject cannot offer a complete package to their romantic relationship; instead, they try to give their own structural shortcomings—that is, what they don’t have—to their partner. Of course, when we consider their partner doing the same, we might think that when we fall in love, we are actually telling each other that we are lacking. The neurotic subject is structurally divided into two categories: hysterical and obsessive. These two subjects have different ways of coping with this lack. Therefore, their love will also differ.
In this month’s article, we will discuss the love of hysterical and obsessive subjects comparatively. We will also offer examples from the films Basic Instinct (1992) and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004).
The Source of Love
For Lacan, the neurotic subject is divided and incomplete. This incompleteness emerges when we enter language, that is, when we enter the symbolic order, and manifests itself as desire. Desire is the remainder when need is subtracted from demand. What we call needs are our biological needs, like a baby’s desire for its mother to breastfeed. Demand, on the other hand, is a desire expressed through language that involves a search for love and recognition. The baby’s desire for its mother to breastfeed stems not only from hunger but also from the desire for love and recognition in this moment.
Desire is lack. We cannot desire without lacking. The subject is always searching for wholeness and recognition due to this fundamental lack that defines it. This lack occurs upon entering the symbolic order. The symbolic order is the domain of the law we call the Big Other. The subject’s lack and desire are, in fact, the desire of the Big Other.
The subject’s existence is structured by the Fundamental Fantasy that establishes the relationship between itself and the object of desire. Love is played out on the stage of this fantasy.
The Hysterical Subject’s Love: Where is The Other’s Desire?
The hysterical subject’s fundamental question is, “Am I a woman or a man?” Because the hysterical subject wants to locate themselves where the Other’s lack, their desire, resides. A love relationship will constitute an effort to find the answer to this question through their partner, the Other.
For the hysterical subject, a complete Other cannot be their lover; this would destroy their identity. The hysterical person will constantly question, challenge, and attempt to dethrone their partner from their position of completeness. This is because they will want to identify with whatever their partner lacks. While the goal here seems to be to find the lack and complete it, this still wouldn’t be an ideal situation for the hysterical subject. Therefore, the Other’s desire must remain perpetually unsatisfied so that they can continue their hysterical striving, to continue in this fantasy. In other words, the hysterical subject wants to identify with the Other’s lack, but by not fully satisfying this, they will continue to leave the Other lacking, thereby perpetuating the desire.
Catherine Tramell in Paul Verhoeven’s Basic Instinct embodies the love of a hysterical subject. Catherine positions Detective Nick as Other. By manipulating him, lying to him, and interrogating him, she constantly keeps him in an incomplete Other position. Catherine grapples with Nick’s existential question, “Am I a good cop?” She maneuvers to provoke this question and perpetuate Nick’s desire.
The Obsessive Subject’s Love: Deferred Lives
For the obsessive subject, encountering the Other’s lack and desire leaves them with the fear of losing their own subjectivity. Therefore, the obsessive strives to neutralize and postpone this demand.
The obsessive subject copes with the lack by rejecting it. Encountering this rejection is the obsessive’s place of death. Therefore, the obsessive’s desire is impossible. Because where their desire is fulfilled, their lack will emerge, thus leaving their desire in a state of perpetual unfulfillment, making it an impossible desire.
In Michael Gondry’s film Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Joel perceives Clementine’s demands for depth and emotional connection as threats. These are experienced as compulsions. Because this point is where Joel encounters the Other, his own lack, it threatens his subjectivity. Therefore, he avoids these experiences by ending the relationship and erasing his memories.
Conclusion
Lacan shows us that love is not merely an emotion, but a space where the subject perpetuates their fundamental fantasy in connection with their own coping strategies with their lack. Hysterical and obsessive subjects establish relationships based on their fundamental fantasies, involving castration and strategies to cope with the lack. Love is a strategy that revolves around the lack.