英：adaptation;法：adaptation
适应是一个生物学的概念 (见：[[biology 生物学]]): 有机体理应受到驱使去调节自身以适应环境。适应即意味着在“内在世界”与“周围世界”之间有某种和谐的关系。
自我心理学 (EGO-PSYCHOLOGY)将这一生物学概念应用于精神分析，根据适应不良的行为来说明神经症的症状 (譬如，将那些古老的防御机制应用在它们已不再适用的那些语境之下)，并且认为精神分析治疗的目标是帮助病人来适应现实
早在 1930 年代拉康的早期著作当中，他便已经开始反对任何根据适应来说明人类现实的企图（见：Lacan, 1938:24:Ec, 158: Ec, 1712)。这在拉康的著作中构成了一个恒定的主题：例如，在 1955 年，他便声称“分析所发现的维度是任何经由适应而进行的事物的对立面”(S 2,86)。他采取此种见解乃是出于以下几点原因：
（1)强调自我的适应性功能，即忽视了自我的异化性功能，而此种强调的基础则在于一种过分简单且毫无疑问的“现实”观。现实并非是自我必须适应的某种简单、客观的事物，而其本身是自我虚构的错误表象与某种投射的产物。因此，“问题不是要适应它【现实］，而是要向它【自我】表明它只是适应得太好，因为它协助了对于那一现实的建构”（E，236）。精神分析的任务无非是旨在颠覆此种虚假的适应感，因为这会阻碍进入无意识的通路。
（2)把适应设定为治疗的目标，即把分析家变成了病人适应的仲裁者。分析家自身“跟现实的关系因而是不言而喻的”（E，230）；这便是在自动地假设分析家比病人适应得更好。如此便不可避免地会把精神分析变成分析家借以将其自身对有关现实的独特见解强加给病人的一种权力的实施；这不是精神分析，而是暗示 (SUGGESTION)。
（3)在适应的概念中所暗含的有机体与其环境之间存在某种和谐的观念并不适用于人类，因为人类在象征秩序中的登陆使他去自然化了，而这便意味着“在人类身上，【同自然的】想象关系是有所偏离的”。尽管“所有动物性机体皆被严格地固定于外部环境的种种条件”(S 2,322), 但是在人类身上却存在着“某种生物性的缺口”(S 2,323: 见：[[gap 缺口]])。任何旨在与自然重新获得和谐的企图，皆忽视了在死亡冲动中汇集起来的那种本质上过剩的冲动势能。人类在本质上即是适应不良的。
拉康指出，自我心理学由于强调自我对于现实的适应，从而把精神分析降格成了一种社会控制与服从的工具。他将此种态度看作对于精神分析的一种全然背叛，而精神分析在他看来则是一种根本颠覆性的实践。
适应的主题是由在 1930 年代后期移民至美国的那批欧洲精神分析家所发展起来的，拉康认为这一事实具有重要的意义：这些分析家不但感觉到他们不得不去适应在美国的生活，而且还感觉到他们不得不让精神分析去适应美国人的口味 (E, 115)。
(adaptation) The concept of adaptation is a biological concept (see BIOLOGY): organisms are supposed to be driven to adapt themselves to fit the environment. Adaptation implies a harmonious relation between the Innerwelt (inner world) and Umwelt (surrounding world).
EGO-PSYCHOLOGY applies this biological concept to psychoanalysis, explainingneurotic symptoms in terms of maladaptive behaviour (such as applying archaic defencemechanisms in contexts where they are no longer appropriate), and arguing that the aimof psychoanalytic treatment is to help the patient adapt to reality.
From his early work in the 1930 s on, Lacan opposes any attempt to explain humanphenomena in terms of adaptation (see Lacan, 1938:24;Ec, 158; Ec, 171-2). This forms aconstant theme in Lacan's work; in 1955, for example, he states that 'the dimensiondiscovered by analysis is the opposite of anything which progresses through adaptation' (S 2,86). He takes this view for several reasons:
- The stress on the adaptive function of the ego misses the ego's alienating functionand is based on a simplistic and unproblematic view of 'reality'. Reality is not a simple, objective thing to which the ego must adapt, but is itself a product of the ego's fictionalmisrepresentations and projections. Therefore 'it is not a question of adapting to it[reality], but of showing it [the ego]that it is only too well adapted, since it assists in theconstruction of that very reality' (E, 236). The task of psychoanalysis is rather to subvertthe illusory sense of adaptation, since this blocks access to the unconscious.
- To set adaptation as the aim of the treatment is to turn the analyst into the arbiter ofthe patient's adaptation. The analyst's own 'relation to reality thus goes without saying (E, 230); it is automatically assumed that the analyst is better adapted than the patient. This inevitably turns psychoanalysis into the exercise of power, in which the analystforces his own particular view of reality onto the patient; this is not psychoanalysis but SUGGESTION.
- The idea of harmony between the organism and its environment, implicit in theconcept of adaptation, is inapplicable to human beings because man's inscription in thesymbolic order de-naturalises him and means that 'in man the imaginary relation [tonature]has deviated'. Whereas 'all animal machines are strictly riveted to the conditionsof the external environment' (S 2,322), in the human being there is 'a certain biologicalgap' (S 2,323; see GAP). Any attempt to regain harmony with nature overlooks theessentially excessive drive potential summed up in the death drive. Human beings areessentially maladaptive.
Lacan argues that the stress put by ego-psychology on the adaptation of the patient toreality reduces psychoanalysis to an instrument of social control and conformity. He seesthis as a complete betrayal of psychoanalysis, which he regards as an essentiallysubversive practice.
Lacan regards it as significant that the adaptation theme was developed by theEuropean psychoanalysts who had emigrated to the USA in the late 1930 s; these analystsfelt not only that they had to adapt to life in the USA, but also that they had to adaptpsychoanalysis to American tastes (E, 115)