Entre o silêncio e a violência: respostas subjetivas ao desamparo discursivo

Abstract

This present article constitutes a theoretical study in conjunction with clinical experience, grounded in the psychoanalytic method, which aims to investigate how subjects in a situation of discursive helplessness construct subjective responses to the weakening of symbolic references within the social bond. The starting hypothesis is that, faced with this helplessness, among the possible responses are silence and violence, as attempts to inscribe a suffering that finds no place in language. To support this discussion, the concept of helplessness (Hilflosigkeit) in Freud's work is first examined, from its articulation with organic immaturity to its existential and civilizational dimension, followed by an approach to the Lacanian reading of trauma as a contingent encounter with the Real that escapes symbolization. Building on this framework, the concept of discursive helplessness is developed, understood as the weakening of the narratives and symbolic bonds that should provide the subject with identity-conferring contours. The theoretical discussion is articulated with three clinical vignettes drawn from the treatment of an adolescent in institutional care, conducted during a Professional Internship. The analysis of the vignettes shows that the adolescent's subjective responses to discursive helplessness are not restricted to a binary logic between silencing and violence, also encompassing a third pathway of symbolic elaboration, mediated by clinical listening. It is concluded that psychoanalytic listening, by sustaining a space of address in which the subject's word may circulate, offers a possible path in the face of the failure of discursive references, not as a repair of what was lacking, but as an opening for a new bond to be inscribed.