• RICHARD DYER

Representations can take a variety of forms: a selective representation of the real, determind to some extent by the form in which the representation is made.

• JACQUES LACAN
• The Real is a term used by the psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan in his theory of psychic structures. For Lacan, the Real is the irreducible surplus of the 'outside world' that resists being turned into language (as the Symbolic) or into spatial representation (as the Imaginary).
• In Jacques Lacan's theory of psychic structures, the Imaginary refers to the non-linguistic aspect of the psyche, formulated during the Mirror Stage
• In Jacques Lacan's theory of psychic structures, the Symbolic refers to the realm of language into which the child enters under the impetus of the Name of the Father. The child's world, which has already been transformed by the Imaginary spatial identifications of the Mirror Stage, now becomes bound up in signifying chains linked to a master signifier. Some leftover of the Real remains, however, unexpressed in language, and resists integration into the Symbolic.