Marks of desire: an analysis of the child’s subjectivity in an institutional setting from a lacanian psychoanalysis perspective

Abstract

This research seeks to understand the function of the desire of the Other in the subjective constitution of a child within an institutional setting from the Lacanian psychoanalytic perspective. The study employed the psychoanalytic method, drawing on both bibliographic and clinical approaches. Conceptual categories such as subjective constitution, the desire of the Other, and the institution from Lacanian psychoanalysis perspective were analyzed, and articulated with a clinical vignette of a child in a foster care institution for children. This study shows that functions such as the desire of the Other can unfold within an institutional context, enabling the emergence of desire and the child's subjective constitution. The clinical vignette illustrates how psychoanalytic listening contributed to creating the conditions for the child's inscription in the symbolic order and constitution as a subject through his questioning of the desire of the Other. This process produced pacifying effects, facilitating a shift from a logic marked by anxiety and jouissance toward new ways of forming bonds and inscribing himself as a subject within the institution.