Objet petit a

In the psychoanalytic theory of Jacques Lacan, objet petit a (French for "object little a"; "a" for "autre", i.e. other) stands for the unattainable object of desire, a projection or reflection of the ego made to symbolise otherness, like a specular image, as opposed to the big Other (written as capitalised "A") which represents otherness itself. It is sometimes called the object cause of desire, as it is the force that induces desire towards any particular object. According to Alan Sheridan's note to his translation of Écrits: A Selection, Lacan always insisted that the term should remain untranslated, "thus acquiring, as it were, the status of an algebraic sign".