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Après avoir fait un rapide historique du concept de psychopathie et de son lien avec la notion de perversion, l’auteur essaie de montrer successivement que guérir le psychopathe c’est impossible, que c’est dangereux pour lui comme pour nous, mais que ça peut marcher quand même si l’on accepte d’adapter notre technique analytique aux idiosyncrasies de ces patients qui refusent de se considérer comme tels.

Can Psychopaths be Cured ? When violence is expressed through the mutilation of an individual’s body, how does the social body react ? What sense can be made of the increasing number of cases of self-harming seen in young people in Western societies ? Their families fear this may lead to death, but the young people describe their behaviour in terms of appeasing the intense mental suffering they find so unbearable. The violence wrought by disinvestment becomes an economical and anti-metaphorical solution, while auto-erotic behaviour is a stumbling block. Such violence can also be observed in the way pedo-psychiatric care is organised in Quebec, where it takes on the form of a mutilation of a different kind.