Scott Alexander (reading by Solenoid Entity / Astral Codex Ten podcast host)

The paternal function is closely linked to language.

Without it, they don't really understand language, although they can mimic it well enough to communicate normally.

Most of the time, Lacan claims that no psychotic person can ever invent a truly novel analogy, which sure is a heck of a claim.

Without real language holding them together, their ego is kind of a sham.

The first strong breeze blows it apart, and the patient stops being a unified subject slash agent.

This looks like traditional psychosis, where the patient hallucinates and has delusions.

Sometimes the patient can knit themselves together again with a sufficiently convincing delusional system, which will mimic the paternal function somehow.

For example, God commands me to be his prophet by doing X.

because they lack the paternal function, name of the father.

They sometimes have a weird obsession with their father's name, Blinkenpost.

Fink presents a supposedly real case of psychosis.

A man, Roger in quotes, has a weak father who is easily dominated by his mother.

He frequently complains about this to his analyst in suspiciously Lacanian language.

There is no name for a father like mine, he says.

He starts doubting that his father is really his father and goes to the county records office to check his birth certificate for his father's name.

Finally, he comes up with a plan.

Write a new last name for himself which combines his real father's name with the name of his psychoanalyst.

He writes the name, buries it in the foundation of his family home and feels pretty good about himself.

Then one day he tells his therapist about a dream.

He is in a golden cage and his therapist is watching him.