The eternalized alienation: a structural approach of a clinical case

This work is an application of a clinic strategy based on the alienation concept - as defined by Jacques Lacan - to handle a supposed psychotic child and her mother. This strategy, proposed by Jussara Falek Brauer, prescribes individual assistance through weekly sessions with daughter and mother. It considers the family structure and intends to deal with the structural determinations on the Subject constitution. Two moments are especially focused - when the work begins and a later one - that exemplify the changing in the positioning of the child as a result from the therapeutic process in course. The theoretical concepts that support this approach - Alienation, The Lacanian Topology about the Subject Constitution, Significant, Unconscious, Castration, Fetish, Perversion, Separation - are presented and related to the clinical material. Some hypotheses are presented about the mother’s psychic structure, withdrawn from the changing of positions and the evolution observed in both mother and daughter. These lead to the establishment of a diagnostic hypothesis for the daughter.

Alienation; Mother child relation; Childhood psychosis; Fetichism; Castration anxiety