Psychoanalytic Listening in the Unified Social Assistance System

This article addresses three types of listening in the field of Social Assistance: common listening, qualified listening, and unconscious listening, with their challenges and possibilities. We noted the lack of research and work on listening based on praxis with subjects who seek care in the Unified Social Assistance System. Even official documents only mention this tool sporadically. Listening is the main instrument for social assistance workers; through it, workers become aware of vulnerabilities, risks, impoverishment, psychic and social challenges, the family, the community, the territory, and the potential of the subjects. This research analyzed the different modalities of listening within social assistance, proposing a unconscious listening that considers other modalities and includes the material reality of the subjects, in addition to the effects of the Capitalist Mode of Production. For this purpose, we used Freud’s and Lacan’s psychoanalysis and historical materialism. The following points were discusses: who listens, the difficulties in listening to others, identification, reality, transference, ethics and ways of responding to the demands presented. In conclusion, psychoanalysis and historical materialism can contribute to place the worker in the midst of this field, enabling knowledge of both the subjective and material reality, as well as to think about strategies, since listening comprises, in addition to knowing, a making-know.

Keywords:
Psychoanalysis; Social Assistance; Listening; Qualified Listening; Unconscious Listening