The Long Zeibekiko for Nikos. The Clinic of Honour Crimes in Contemporary Greece

The contribution of psycholanalysis to criminology is recurrently referred to a kind of symbolic deficit which is considered to elucidate the passage to criminal act, very often associated with psychopathetic personality. Contrary to the predominant view, the present study on crimes of honour in contemporary Greece, with the use of case study method, aims at revealing another aspect of morbidity as to symbolic function: that of “over functioning” of the symbolic. Findings permit to broaden our understanding not only with respect to the subject who commits the crime but also with respect to the social and unconscious determinants of criminal act. An epistemology of the ideal from Freud to Lacan leads to an epistemology of guilt, which is necessary for the reactivation of the issue of act from the psychonalytic point of view in light of the ideal. Emphasis is laid on the morbid effects of the ideal (of honour) which induce the subjects to commit an act, perceived by them as servning a necessity, attempting a passage from a clinic of structure to a clinic where subject and social are met.