英：suggestion; 法：suggestion
在19世纪的法国精神病学中，“暗示”这一术语指的是运用催眠来移除神经症的症状，当病人处于一种催眠状态的时候，医生便“暗示”说症状会消失。弗洛伊德曾跟从法国精神病学家夏尔柯与伯恩海姆学习，并在1880年代开始运用暗示来治疗神经症患者。然而，他渐渐不满足于暗示，且因此最终放弃了催眠技术并发展了精神分析。所以，弗洛伊德不满足于催眠的原因，便是理解精神分析的确切本质的基础。然而，去深入有关这些问题的详细讨论超出了本词条的范围。一言以蔽之，在弗洛伊德的后期著作中，“暗示”这个术语便渐渐代表着弗洛伊德将其联系于催眠且因而是与精神分析截然对立的一整套思想。
拉康遵循弗洛伊德的观点，用“暗示”这一术语来指代偏离真正精神分析的一整套做法 (拉康也将这些偏离称作“心理治疗”)，下面的这些说法在其中或许是最为显著的：
(1)暗示包括了把病人导向某种理想或是某种道德价值的思想 (见：伦理学[ETHICS])。与此相对，拉康则提醒分析家们注意，他们的任务是指导治疗，而非指导病人 (E, 227)。拉康反对任何把精神分析当作一种带有社会影响的规范化过程的观念。
(2)暗示同样发生在当病人的阻抗 (RESISTANCE)被看作分析家所必须肃清的某种东西的时候。拉康认为，这样一种见解是完全无涉于精神分析的，因为分析家会认识到某种阻抗的剩余是内在于治疗的结构之中的东西。
(3)在暗示中，治疗师的那些解释皆是围绕着意指而定向的，而分析家则围绕着意义 (sens)及其相关的无意义 (nonsense)来定向他的解释。因而，在心理治疗中，便存在着一种试图避免话语的歧义性与模棱两可的做法，然而精神分析所赖以生长的恰恰是此种歧义性。
暗示与转移 (TRANSFERENCE)具有一种密切的关系 (E, 270)。如果说转移涉及分析者把知识归于分析家，那么暗示便指的是回应此种归属的一种特殊方式。拉康指出，分析家必须认识到，他只是占据着一个（被分析者所）假设知道的位置，而不应欺骗自己，以为他真的确实拥有那种被归于他的知识。如此一来，分析家便能够把转移转化为“对于暗示的分析”(E, 271)。而暗示则发生在分析家采取了那个实际知道的位置的时候。
像弗洛伊德一样，拉康也把催眠看作暗示的典范。在《群体心理学与自我的分析》(Gro中Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego)中，弗洛伊德说明了催眠术何以会使对象会聚于自我理想 (Freud, 1921)。套用拉康的措辞来说，催眠术涉及的是对象a与I的会聚。精神分析恰恰涉及的是相反的事情，因为“分析运作的基本原动力便是维持I一认同一与a之间的距离”(S11,273)。
(suggestion) In nineteenth-century French psychiatry, the term 'suggestion'referred tothe use of hypnosis to remove neurotic symptoms; while the patient was in a state ofhypnosis, the doctor would 'suggest'that the symptoms would disappear. Taking his cuefrom the French psychiatrists Charcot and Bemnheim, Freud began using suggestion totreat neurotic patients in the 1880s. However, he became increasingly dissatisfied withsuggestion, and thus came to abandon hypnosis and develop psychoanalysis. The reasonsfor Freud's dissatisfaction with hypnosis are hence fundamental for understanding thespecific nature of psychoanalysis. However, it is beyond the scope of this article to enterinto a detailed discussion of these reasons. Suffice it to say that in Freud's later work theterm 'suggestion'comes to represent a whole set of ideas which Freud associates withhypnosis and which is thus diametrically opposed to psychoanalysis.
Following Freud, Lacan uses the term 'suggestion'to designate a whole range ofdeviations from true psychoanalysis (deviations which Lacanalso refers toaspsychotherapy'), of which the following are perhaps the most salient:
- Suggestion includes the idea of directing the patient towards some ideal or somemoral value (see ETHICS). In opposition to this, Lacan reminds analysts that their task isto direct the treatment, not the patient (E, 227). Lacan is opposed to any conception ofpsychoanalysis as a normative process of social influence.
- Suggestion also arises when the patient's RESISTANCE is seen as something thatmust be liquidated by the analyst. Such a view is completely foreign to psychoanalysis, argues Lacan, since the analyst recognises that a certain residue of resistance is inherentin the structure of the treatment.
- In suggestion, the interpretations of the therapist are orientated around signification, whereas the analyst orientates his interpretations around meaning (sens) and its correlatenonsense. Thus whereas in psychotherapy there is an attempt to avoid the ambiguity andequivocation of discourse, it is precisely this ambiguity which psychoanalysis thrives on.
Suggestion has a close relation with TRANSFERENCE (E, 270). If transferenceinvolves the analysand attributing knowledge to the analyst, suggestion refers to aparticular way of responding to this attribution. Lacan argues that the analyst must realisethat he only occupies the position of one who is presumed (by the analysand) to know, without fooling himself that he really does possess the knowledge attributed to him. Inthis way, the analyst is able to transform the transference into'an analysis of suggestion' (E, 271). Suggestion, on the other hand, arises when the analyst assumes the position ofone who really does know.
Like Freud, Lacan sees hypnosis as the model of suggestion. In Group Psychology andthe Analysis of the Ego, Freud shows how hypnotism makes the object converge with theego-ideal (Freud, 1921). To put this in Lacanian terms, hypnotism involves theconvergence of the object a and the I.Psychoanalysis involves exactly the opposite, sincethe fundamental mainspring of the analytic operation is the maintenance of the distancebetween I-identification-and the a' (S11,273)