André Michels – Institutions and Law – A Contribution to a Theory of Transmission
 
THE LETTER 12 (Spring 1998) pages 66-85
 
Introduction
 
I have three questions but maybe no answer:
 
Firstly: What do we mean when we speak about the end of an analysis’? Without a doubt, there is a world of difference whether an analysis is brought to an end or not. Secondly: What kind of institution best accommodates psychoanalysis and which one takes into account its specificity?
 
These two questions are in fact one and the same and are very closely related to a third one: What has psychoanalysis to say about law? What doespsychoanalysis, as a practice and theory, teach us about law? What would be a typical psychoanalytic reading, an interpretation, of law? Law, in this context, is considered insofar as a subject is concerned, and so the question becomes: What is a subjective relation to law? Or, what are the subjective effects of law?