Possibilities and Impasses of a Conversation in a Prison Institution: An Experience Report

Abstract

The article aims to discuss the possibilities and impasses in relation to collectivized psychoanalytic listening, made possible by Conversation in the experience of the extension project in a very specific prison unit: an Association for the Protection and Assistance of Convicts (APAC) in Minas Gerais. This institution is a civil entity under private law that assists the judicial system in the execution of sentences through alternative methods to those of the common penal regime. The Conversation is discussed based on the ideas of collectivized free association, betting on the word, the search for a point of reality for the subject, the difference between a simple conversation and the transferential handling of it. These points are dialogued with examples of the project's practice within the APAC institution. We start from the idea of collectivized listening as a possibility of hearing the malaise and building a work around it that goes beyond symptomatic repetition, enabling progress not only for each institutionalized subject, but also for the institution.