Evelyn Mulray (not her real name — she’s a minor) and I recently rescued each other and my first week with this kilo of shenanigans has reminded me of Jacques Lacan’s discussion of the childhood game Hide-and-Seek or in Freud’s parlance “fort/da” — an important topic in psychoanalytic theory. Freud conceived of fort/da as a way for the child to master anxiety over the mother’s absence; Lacan expanded its significance linking it to the structure of subjectivity and the emergence of the symbolic order (language). For Lacan fort/da and the process of developing object permanence are critical for psychological evolution as well as the formation of desire, which I’ll briefly link to Denis de Rougement’s work.
Object permanence is the understanding that people and objects continue to exist even when they are out of sight. Before object permanence babies act as if things they can no longer see cease to exist. Like Evelyn Mulray, as children develop object permanence they search for hidden objects and show distress when caregivers leave.
Freud first described the fort/da game in “Beyond the Pleasure Principle” after watching his grandson repeatedly throw a spool out of his crib and out of sight (accompanied by saying “fort” or “gone”) and then pulling it back (saying “da” or “there”). There/not there. Freud theorized that this ritual allowed the child to symbolically manage the anxiety of his mother’s absence, transforming passive loss into an active process he could control. The game is a way to represent and ultimately master the trauma of separation.
Lacan took Freud’s observations further and theorized fort/da was not just about coping with loss, but about the child’s entry into the symbolic order — the realm of language, representation, and social structure. The act of naming absence and presence introduces the child to the world of signifiers, the basic units of language that structure our reality.
Interestingly (and I’m uncertain I agree with this), Lacan argued that fort/da does not simply help the child endure the mother’s absence, but also allows the child to create distance from the overwhelming presence of the mother. The spool or object used in the game becomes a symbolic substitution enabling the child to carve out an independent space for its own desire. In Lacan’s terms, the game stages a separation between the subject and the (m)Other, a separation necessary for the child to individuate and develop their own “self.” The child’s play with absence and presence mediated by signifiers is what allows them to begin to wonder about their own place in the eyes of the (m)Other (cf. the gaze).
My own understanding of Hide-and-Seek and object permanence was rekindled this week by observing Evelyn Mulray. Like many young animals, she takes joy in hiding behind curtains, under coffee tables, and between pillows, peeking out to see if I am still there and sometimes waiting until I “disappear” before darting out to find me. This playful behavior mirrors the dynamics of the fort/da game. Like humans, Evelyn Mulray is developing her sense of object permanence. Initially, when I left the room or hid, she would meow or search anxiously. Now she waits, peeks, or even initiates the game herself, suggesting she is beginning to understand that I continue to exist even when she cannot see me. This process is not just cognitive but emotional — she is learning to tolerate my absence, anticipate my return, and perhaps even enjoy the suspense and reunion.
Lacan’s insight is that the possibility of absence is what gives presence its psychological weight. Similarly — and this is just me extrapolating — Denis de Rougement in “Love in the Western World” says that in our culture romantic love exists more in the partner’s absence than in their presence. He writes, “What they (the lovers) need is not one another’s presence, but one another’s absence.” Unlike “Jerry Maguire,” wherein Tom Cruise subconsciously believes that he is unwhole and that Renee Zellweger “completes” him and makes him whole, Evelyn Mulray is individuating and learning that she is whole even when I’m not there.
The fort/da game is not just about loss but about the creation of meaning through separation. By learning to symbolize absence, the child (or kitten) acquires the ability to desire, to imagine, and to relate to others as separate beings. This psychological process underlies our capacity for language, creativity, and love. The symbolic marking of absence allows us to move beyond immediate gratification and to enter the world of relationships, culture, and meaning.
From Freud’s grandson to Lacan’s theory of the signifier and from Evelyn Mulray to human infants, the game of Hide-and-Seek is a profound ritual of psychological development. It teaches us to bear absence, to symbolize presence, to delay gratification, and to discover ourselves as desiring subjects.