Jacques derrida and psychoanalysis: Evoke, provoke, invoke, (re)exist

Abstract

This article briefly examines the importance of Jacques Derrida as an interlocutor, reader and thinker of psychoanalysis. It looks particularly at the lecture Derrida presented in 2000 entitled Psychoanalysis Searches the States of its Soul: the Impossible Beyond of a Sovereign Cruelty. This keynote address was given at the event entitled States General of Psychoanalysis at the invitation of the organizers. This meeting brought together psychoanalysts from 32 countries from different lines, affiliations and institutions of psychoanalysis. Some of the critical themes proposed by Derrida will be examined in this article and their importance and relevance for psychoanalysis as practice, theory and thought will be indicated.