The ‘Legal Unconscious’: Exploring the Intersection of Law and Psychoanalysis
| Published date | 01 July 2023 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/23220058221139075 |
| Author | Amit Bindal,Latika Vashist |
| Date | 01 July 2023 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
The ‘Legal Unconscious’:
Exploring the Intersection
of Law and Psychoanalysis
Amit Bindal1 and Latika Vashist2
Abstract
This article explores the intersection between law and psychoanalysis. We argue that psychoa-
nalysis provides a method of reading the law in a novel, nuanced and subversive way. Paying attention
to repetitions and repressions in the text of the law, one can discern, what has been named, ‘the legal
unconscious’. The essay seeks to introduce law students to some of the foundational ideas of psychoa-
nalysis and illustrate the possibilities of alternative legal imaginations that this method opens up.
Introduction: Why Psychoanalysis?
The art of storytelling has attained its nemesis in modern times. One nds telling a tale exceedingly dif-
cult, just like sharing one’s personal experiences. This insight, no less a lament, comes from Walter
Benjamin in his essay on the storyteller.3 For Benjamin, the years after the First World War inaugurated
a shift from ‘sharing’ of experiences to depositing of ‘information’. On their return from the war, people
grew ‘silent- not richer, but poorer in communicable experience’.4 This repletion of resources for com-
municating, sharing and story-telling is a pressing concern for the law. Even as it is accepted that a good
lawyer must be a good storyteller who passionately narrativizes the life world of her clients to press for
justice, this view of the law(yer), is not consistent with the self-presentation of modern law which is
premised on ‘word’ as opposed to ‘image’ and much less imagination.5 It is the abstract rules in their
dispassionate and rational application to ‘facts’ that constitute the process of law. Such a view makes
clarity, certainty and predictability the undisputed features of the study of modern law.
This essay is an attempt to disrupt this dominant view of law and open up the other side of the law
where the art of story-telling is revived to construct legal truths and re-imagine justice. We seek to
inaugurate this dimension of law by introducing psychoanalysis as a method of reading. Law and
1 Jindal Global Law School, O.P. Jindal Global University, Sonipat, Haryana, India.
2 School of Law, Governance and Citizenship, Dr. B.R. Ambedkar University Delhi, Delhi, India.
3 Walter Benjamin, The Storyteller: Reflections on the Work of Nikolai Leskov, in illuminations 83–109 (Harry ZoHn trans.,
Fontana Press 1973). The title of this melancholic essay about storytelling as a forgotten genre is taken from a nineteenth-century
Russian writer Nikolai Leskov.
4 Id. at 84.
5 Peter GoodricH, oediPus lex: History, PsycHoanalysis, laW Chap. 1 (California University Press 1995).
Article
Asian Journal of Legal Education
10(2) 177–189, 2023
© 2023 The West Bengal National
University of Juridical Sciences
Article reuse guidelines:
in.sagepub.com/journals-permissions-india
DOI: 10.1177/23220058221139075
journals.sagepub.com/home/ale
Corresponding author:
Amit Bindal, Jindal Global Law School, O. P. Jindal Global University, Sonipat, Haryana 131001, India.
E-mail: abindal@jgu.edu.in
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