Transference, desire and act in a case of school inclusion

Abstract

This is a case monitored at a school, in which a teacher and the assistant of inclusive practices have handled a child’s violence and self-harm by means of transference, desire and act. By violence, we mean the subject’s actions linked to the satisfaction of the death drive. The conceptual operators of a Lacanian-oriented psychoanalysis were taken as guiding principles for conducting the case and criticizing the institution’s difficulty in including the unexpected and disruptive of violence and self-harm as powerful objects for work. It was verified, by different contingencies, that the desire and the act caused a change in the position of the educator, of the assistant and, subsequently, the arise of the child’s will to speak. However, it was evident through the inclusive practice advisors, that the institution’s greatest concern was to evaluate what was produced by each educator in the classroom, from the point of view of making and adapting activities for students in situations of inclusion, rather than listening to the team’s deadlocks. In such cases, the Lacanian concept of extimacy can guide the professional’s work with institutions that are intended to be inclusive. Whether hired by a family as a therapeutic companion or, especially, when working for a school as an assistant of inclusive practices, the challenge is to establish a bond with the institution without necessarily responding to all its demands, which may prevent the listening of the urgent child. Therefore, the professional must rely on the contingencies of the meetings, so as to enable that something new may be inserted in the student’s school experience.