This article discusses the presence of the evangelical discourse among patients of mental health and psychosocial care services, the features of that religious phenomenon and its potential to transform the lives of individuals, families and groups by linking them to a fairly peculiar modality of religious discourse. As our research took place in France and in Brazil, we propose two clinical vignettes (from one case in each country) to analyze the kind of subjective and psychic transformation caused by that religious bond, how it affects transference and the difficulties that it may cause for professionals who act on subjectivity. To achieve that goal, we surveyed some of the nodal points of psychoanalytic readings on religion and religiosity, on what results from the religious thing in the genesis of psychic life, in the subject, in groups, in culture and in politics.
Key words:
Evangelicals; psychoanalysis; religion; conversion