Psychosis and the Law: Legal Responsibility and Law of Symbolisation

Abstract

This paper argues for the practical importance ofpsychoanalysis for criminology, an importancewhich finds its raison d'etre in thenecessity that a subject be response-able for there tobe full legal responsibility. In recognising therequirement for a certain linguistic constellation tobe in evidence – namely that there be a subject ofenunciation who is able to answer for what hearticulates at the level of his statement – thecorrespondence between legal responsibility and thelaw of symbolisation, Lacan's term for theOedipus complex, is addressed. Starting from thefictitious structure of truth and its corollary, thefact that `truth is grounded on the fact that itspeaks', the unconscious emerges as a grammaticalapparatus for the production of meaning. The logic ofexception, indexed on the signifier of theName-of-the-Father, is exposed as the mechanism forthe operation of this grammatical apparatus as it isbrought to bear on the trace of subjective division.I then demonstrate the importance of division for thesubject of law by presenting the deleterious effectsof the dysfunctional grammar of psychosisthrough a study of President Schreber's Memoirs and his use of grammatical devices in orderto institute a constitutional democracy in the realmof God – and thus submit the Father to his Name.