Mobilization of a collective of waste pickers: practice in Psychodynamic Cooperation Clinic

Abstract

In this article, we present the results of a practice in Psychodynamic Cooperation Clinic with workers linked to a waste pickers association from the point of view of Work Psychodynamics, which is characterized as a clinic listening to subjects who withstand the various types of suffering at work imposed by its organization and promotes health by means of a subjective mobilization of the collective of workers. This study aims to describe this mobilization through a qualitative and descriptive research. There were 12 interview sessions including the participation of 16 waste pickers, aged between 39 to 78 years with little schooling. There was the transition from single management to collective management, which is still in structuring and learning process. The subjective mobilization that took place during the practice of the Clinic continued reverberating in the collective of collectors, which, after the formation of the collective management, promoted changes in work organization and took possession of the real of the work and the collective management of the association; these were the main effects of this practice. Thus, the greatest demonstration of this study is the importance of the Clinic as political potential of collective organization.