This text was delivered in July 2000 at the Sorbonne, during the four-day assembly of the General Classes of Psychoanalysis to mark the centenary of the publication of the founding psychoanalytic Freudian text 'The Interpretation of Dreams'.

Here, Jacques Derrida highlights the radical relationship of psychoanalysis with ethics, law, and politics, through the examination of the concepts of resistance, cruelty, and sovereignty.

Among the many topics addressed, the legitimization of the institutional formation of Psychoanalytic Societies and groups predominates, as well as the problem of suffering, war and peace, the deconstruction of sovereignty, human rights, the death penalty, the death and life drives, the right to life, and survival.

[Excerpt from the text on the back cover of the edition]