LIMA, Roseclair Keller de Oliveira. The place assigned to the child in the scene of judicial parental dispute: a psychoanalytic perspective. 139 f. Master’s Thesis (Master’s in in Psychology), São Paulo State University (UNESP), School of Sciences and Letters, 2024.
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Objective: The present research aims to understand the child’s place as a subject in the family composition during the litigious legal process in the custody dispute. This is qualitative research, based on the theoretical approach of Psychoanalysis and Couple and Family Psychoanalysis, originating from the researcher’s daily work in the Technical Sector of the Court of Justice of the State of São Paulo. A study of three cases was carried out, with a sample of couples with children between six and ten years of age, who lived together and who are in litigation over parental custody. Method: The analysis was carried out based on reminiscences and case notes, and in all of them, interviews, interaction observation, playful observation and the Drawing-of-Family-and-Story Procedure (DF-E) were used during the evaluation process (Trinca, 2020). The data point to the indication that the place assigned and the inclusion of the child in the family psyche were created from the establishment of the marital plot, which presented conflicts and difficulties from the beginning. Thus, faced with marital breakdown amid crises that occurred throughout the family’s history, the litigation process occurred as a possible path to resolving all the conflicts that permeated the couple’s life, including their child. In reality, the existence of marital crises, present from the beginning, affected the establishment of the narcissistic contract, affecting both the narcissistic investments and the place offered to the child, continuing throughout the contentious dispute. Conclusion: In this way, the children’s needs and suffering are not considered during the process, exacerbating filial suffering, combined with the experienced helplessness and fear of loss, demonstrating the disintegration of family bonds and the psychic work that will be necessary to rebuild the familiar fabric.