Psychoanalytic paradigms for “internal” change in the institutions

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article reflects on the transmission of clinical practices based on psychoanalytic theories and methods in care institutions. It examines the issues raised by these practices and the impact on therapists in the French social, scientific, and economic context. We attempt to identify the factors that promote the implementation of a process of reflection on established practices and their evolution. Our hypothesis is that any process of transmission of psychoanalytic practices in institutions implies thinking about the institution as an object of psychic reality, and grappling with potentially persecuting elements of change; these include the upheaval of values and ideals underlying the practices, as well as generational transmissions and their potential for conflict. The possibility of working on these internal objects raises the question of the institutional capacity for containing conflict; it also involves thinking about the nature and function of institutional spaces. Three points in particular are developed: the organizational modes of structures and their impact; the history of the structure and its intergenerational transmission; and the place of third parties in the process of historicization and transmission. These three points define the objects that are collectively elaborated, and the method that promotes the evolution and creativity of psychoanalytic practices in institutions.