This text is a discussion about whether anxiety can be the cause of acts of violence, when the anxiety finds no channel for symbolization.
The problem is approached by studying the manners of subjectivation of children and young people with histories of neglect and/or practices of violence. The problem is discussed on the basis of a clinical case. The article also treats of the damages that result from the breakage of family ties early in life, a fact which reinstalls feelings of helplessness and the loss of the father function, implying symbolic deficit and establishing a tendency to “act out the drives.”
Psychoanalysis; anxiety; violence; subjectivity; case study