Rethinking relationship between psychoanalysis and politics: the oxymoron Lacanian left F. Manuel Montalbán Peregrín Universidad de Málaga, Spain. Abstract The present article offers an approach to the "Lacanian Left", which has become a meeting point for the revitalization of left political thought at the beginning of the 21st century. Specifically, it explores two views that have arisen in two different geopolitical locations and languages: one arising in British Universities (in the context of the Essex School), and another emerging from the work of authors in Latin-America and Spain. Moreover I assess their implications for thinking about social transformation and the renewal of the theory of the political subject. Key words: Psychoanalysis and policy thinking, Lacanian Left, posmarxism, political subject. Introduction The encounter between psychoanalysis and political thought has produced mixed results since it began. After the First World War, Freud himself devoted a significant part of his output to cultural texts, with clear implications for socio- political debate. However, it has to be recognised that the main approach to the concept of the unconscious has been from an individualistic perspective. In fact, as Borch-Jacobsen (1991) emphasizes, most of the criticism on the influence of psychoanalysis in political theory has been based on the recourse to individual psychological factors alone. The psychoanalytical theory of culture and the concept of drive were some of the rather uncomfortable parts of the Freudian tradition that the first generations of psychoanalysts emigrating to Britain and America had to leave aside in order to adapt psychoanalysis to the American individualism of the 1930s and 1940s. However, in recent decades, the field of human sciences has seen the emergence of new approaches to psychoanalysis that focus on social and related issues. These approaches are surprising even to the more orthodox supporters of the psychoanalytical canon. These osmotic