Not Wanting to Know and See: Homeless Population and Segregation

Abstract

This article is the result of a master's thesis research project that investigated psychoanalytic practice in clinical settings in contexts of social vulnerability. It starts from the analysis of the homeless population as a Social Symptom - a manifestation that exposes the fractures of the collective and emerges as an attempt to symbolize the impossible to be enunciated in the social bond. By articulating the concept of social symptom with segregation, the current work raises questions: what unbearable truth does this symptom hide? What do we not want to see when we segregate these subjects in a homeless situation? And more radically: what aspect of our own humanity do we refuse to see when we relegate these subjects to the margins of social space? One must consider the subject not only in the singular sphere, but also in the social and public spheres. Therefore, we conclude that psychoanalysis is not limited to being a clinical practice, but exposes itself as a field of critical reflection on the ideologies that sustain segregation and exclusion.