Psychoanalytic listening to adolescents in institutional sheltering: an extension experience

Abstract

The extension project “Adolescence, Sheltering and Helplessness Clinic” offers psychoanalytic listening to adolescents in social vulnerability and those who find themselves in sheltering institutions. In the present article, the potency of psychoanalytic device is discussed in it’s relation to the terms which compose the project’s title, specially the concept of helplessness. Guided by the principle of clinic’s territorialization, the members of this project establish dialogue with Sheltering Institutions and translocates to the adolescents to offer a listening which can be done in different clinical molds, mitigating the subjective silencing produced by the institutional Other and by the so frequent social vulnerability among these subjects. From that point onwards, it is noted that the singularity of each case requires questioning of some elements of psychoanalytic theory ad clinic, such as the setting, the management of transference, the direction of treatment and possible interventions for the practitioner. The project aims to bet on the significant value of what is brought by these adolescents, letting the dimension of desire come through, of agency about their history, detaching from an objectifying determination.