Life Behind Bars: Psychoanalysis and Forensic Practice

by | Vol 30 (2) 2012

This article outlines the possibility of a psychoanalytic clinic within a forensic setting. It is difficult to provide treatment within a judicial discourse, which leaves no room for the subject of the patient but only for their status as defined by the law and its enforcement. However, psychoanalysis can still provide an opening for the patient to speak despite this prevailing discourse. The singular position of the analyst will be especially crucial. Firstly, transference as working tool is actively used via a treatment of the Other (l’Autre), to establish changes in the relationship of the patient to the other (l’autre). Secondly, the setting and the specificity of volatile patients within a clinic of the Real with accompanying acts, aggression and crises, require a creative form of intervention. A recognition of the suffering of the patient is thereby necessary. The casuistry throws light on the clinical as well as the forensic aspects of the patient.

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