The transmission of Freudian psychoanalysis has suffered from its institutionalisation and the totems and taboos which accompanied it. Like music, psychoanalysis is transmitted and interpreted by the same action, which feeds the guilt involved in betraying it. At the same time the interpretation opens a small saving apocalypse (Baricco) in face of the totemic traps. The institutional evolution has contributed to impoverishing the dialogue between psychoanalysis and today’s culture, while this culture has moved away from any interest in the inner world through what we, following Winnicott, call a manic defence of everyday life. The psychoanalytical institution is giving signs of new vitality and the more economically affordable centres of consultation are evidence of this movement.