Lacanian Psychoanalysis vs. Freudian Psychoanalysis

Jacques Lacan, a French psychoanalyst who chose to further Sigmund Freud's theory but was always more curious about how the individual mind dealt with culture at large. Lacan believed that the unconscious and conscious mind had to do with language more so than Freud's theory that the factors of the mind were somewhat sexually related. Lacanian Psychoanalysis notes three factors of human existence:
The Real: beyond signification, the things that cannot be explained or put into words. The Mirror stage: basis of ego formation, The Imaginary and the Symbolic (Law of the Father): both represent the steps that a newborn takes in the process of developing a psychical structure that is considered to be normal. Lack: desires unknown to unconscious self as unable to comprehend and Shared: sense of loss between language and imaginary pleasures. On the other side, the Freudian Psychoanalysis theory claims that a person's identity is not passed on or inherited through genes but is a result from their past experiences specifically taking place during youth. This resulting in our identities being influenced by outside forces that were encountered during the early experiences in their lives.

Freud/s theory was based on the preoedipal stage (pleasure principle), postoedpal stage (curbing desire), desire explained through: repression, definition of the unconscious being repressed desires and wanting to make them known or felt, and the phallus: father/s sexual characteristics reflect sexual power to the child

Comparing the two, it is logical to believe that without language, it is impossible to understand, express or denote our experiences. Language is the basis of most of things that we don't feel through personal experience first. Freud's theory being built on the sense that the past and what we experience make up who we were, who we are and who we will become associates with Lacan's theory. The mind is comprised of many factors. There is no doubt that our past influences us, but it does not dictate who we will be. It is simply something that we have lived through and we choose to decide whether or not to let it affect who we will become.