Jacques Lacans’ Mirror Stage describes the formation of the ego via the process of objectification, the ego being the result of a conflict between one's perceived visual appearance and one's emotional experience. This identification is what Jacques Lacan called alienation. The mirror image initiates and then aids, like a crutch, the process of the formation of an integrated sense of self.

The active and reflexive voices are autoerotic — they lack a subject. It is only when the drive completes its circuit with the passive voice that a new subject appears, implying that prior to that instance, there was no subject.

Mirror Stage #3 To Be Seen (the passive voice)