The Imaginary' is Lacan's term for a realm in which the construction of the Self as subject is initiated. Initially the infant has no centre of identity and there are no clear boundaries between itself and the external world. Lacan argues that in 'the mirror phase' (at the age of six- to eighteen-months, before the acquisition of speech), seeing one's mirror image induces a strongly-defined illusion of a coherent and self-governing personal identity.