The Ego Ideal Is Not the Ideal Ego

When the symbolic is introjected, brought inside so that it's now part of the psychic structure of the child, you have the lower left hand quadrant of the graph of desire. This is the ego ideal. The ego ideal is the law, the order, the normative codes, the gendered dynamics that the child learns to internalize and they internalize it by eventually having the law separated from the law giver. A subjective peer need issues a cry. An adult shows up with all the possible responses and then chooses one of those responses,. thereby educating the child about how they can get their needs met using a language that is not their own. That's what we're getting at here