ABSTRACT
As a discipline, psychoanalysis belongs to no one: to no state, to no country, to no institution. This chapter takes as its starting point the fact that psychoanalysis belongs to no one, but as a discipline in the field of the human sciences, it is part of humankind's legacy. It unravels the historical and institutional reasons behind the appropriation drive to which psychoanalysis has been subject, and shows how, as a movement, psychoanalysis has gone from being a sovereignist institution with a living Freud or his direct heirs at its helm, to becoming a splintered mass movement. In a parallel line of argumentation, the chapter shows that the conceptual foundations of psychoanalysis deconstruct the very principle of a sacred sovereignty and render psychoanalysis incompatible with any form of dictatorship or fascism. Finally, the question of the ownership of psychoanalysis is discussed.
