Pieces of Real Life: Thoughts on Violence

This article, which analyses a crime that took place in the city of Brasilia in 1997, is based on two separate and correlated hypotheses. Firstly, this crime reveals a fact about psychic structure: the "real" dimension irrupts through acts. Therefore, psychoanalytical practice must contemplate the "real" dimension. Secondly, we would like to pose two questions. Is it necessary for today's psychoanalysts to be aware of and involved with contemporary events? If the analyst ignores modern dialectics, what kind of symbolic involvement can he establish with the lives of the people he analyzes? Being committed to contemporary symbolic culture signifies that we must relinquish the comfortable division between good and evil. Acts of violence, performed by human beings, necessarily indicate both "enjoyment" and "truth". In the symbolic dimension, we understand and comprehend; in the symbolic dimension, we are reasonable. But, not all acts fall within this pacifying register. If we consider these two aspects: on one hand, the analyst's responsibility to the patient, in regard to symbolic commitment and, on the other hand, the irruption of violent and senseless acts, this would mean that as analysts, we find ourselves lacking a certain neutrality, contrary to the position defended by some analysts.

Keywords:

• Violence
• Act
• Real
• Symbolic
• Imaginary
• Clinical Practice
• Discourse