ABSTRACT
Should members of the public be protected from psychoanalysts? Psychoanalysis is not a science – it is, Lacan says, ‘a babbling practice’ – so it is not clear what kind of criteria could ever be used to govern it, criteria that the psychoanalysts would accept. The truth that is spoken in the clinic is not verified empirically, but instead, Lacan says, has the ‘structure of fiction’, a poetic evocation of a subject who always escapes the regulative nature of language, and, more so, escapes the attempts by the state to turn ethics into a closed system of moral rules. It is not clear what we are to do about this irresolvable conflict between diametrically opposed agendas for treatment, whether we should bring people into line or create a space for them to speak. I warn you that, since this is my last chance in the book to tell you that we create spaces for people to speak, I rant a bit towards the end. What did you expect?
