From Insufficiency to Anticipation : an Introduction to 'Lichaamskaart’

In this paper we take up the point of symbolic-imaginary anticipation and we combine it with the mirror stage, worked out by Jacques Lacan in numerous publications. We place the mirror stage within its complex temporal framework and explain how the three topological categories (RSI) follow from this most intimate of subjective experiences in the double mirror set up. All kinds of psychopathological mechanisms are traceable to this period in subjective development. Until recently it was impossible to find direct traces of this defining and unchanging moment. Since the beginning of 1990 a new method of therapy was devised in Duffel, named 'lichaamskaart', or body map. We point out the likeness and differences befween the double mirror stage and the construction of the lichaamskaart. In conclusion we illustrate the relationship between anticipatory systems and the therapeutic process involved in lichaamskaart.