What makes the group an analytical device? Considerations by Freud and Lacan

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to take up the discussion on clinical practice with groups, based on the psychoanalysis of Freud and Lacan, highlighting the psychoanalyst’s ethics, its impasses and possibilities of being part of collective, public or institutional environments. The “collective” is an important aspect in psychosocial care and in the “extended medical practice (clinic)” proposed by the Unified Health System (SUS). However, innovative perspectives proposed by new groups in the field are often forgotten, in the emergence of groups in the clinical field and the predominance of mass care, which justifies our discussion. For this, we present counterpoints between the groupism concept in psychoanalysis and the Lacanian perspective on the collective logic and social bonds. Then, we return to some Lacanian works in different collective contexts and, finally, emphasize some considerations about clinical practice, in order to go beyond the imaginary effects of groups and privilege the subject and his uniqueness.