The author focuses on the ethical aspects of work in an institution with youngsters whose problematic behaviour deviates from societal norms. A central element in this work concerns tension in the relationship between pedagogical norms and psychoanalytical ethics. The ethics of psychoanalysis translates to: (1) the level of policy; as well as to (2) the level of the clinic around which this policy is being constructed; and last, but not least, to (3) the level of the subject who finds him or herself within the institution. Some theoretical guidelines of Lacan support this threefold translation. In this process, the concept of ‘neutrality of the analyst’ will be confronted with the norm as the incarnation of the ‘desire of the Other’. The value of this theoretically founded ethical attitude is illustrated through the clinical work with a seventeen year-old boy.
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