PSYCHOPATHY FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF PERVERSION: POSSIBILITIES AND LIMITS OF CLINICAL MANAGEMENT IN FREUD AND LACAN

Abstract

This article analyzes psychopathy from the structural category of perversion in the psychoanalytic theory of Sigmund Freud and Jacques Lacan. Moving away from the phenomenological descriptions of statistical manuals (DSM-5), the analysis focuses on the defense mechanism of Verleugnung (denial) and the subject's position in relation to the Big Other. Through an interdisciplinary articulation between Law and Psychoanalysis, subjective responsibility beyond legal imputability is discussed. It concludes that, although treatment faces severe resistance due to the absence of initial anxiety, the clinical bet lies in subjective rectification and the possibility of a supplement for the ethical void constitutive of perversion.