Therapeutic narratives. A look into psychoanalytic interventions from a socio-anthropological perspective

Abstract

The paper focuses on the production of therapeutic narratives from an anthropological perspective by describing the concepts and terms that psychoanalysts use to describe the evolution of treatments in the context of a psychiatric hospital. The data analyzed is part of a qualitative research in a psychiatric hospital in Buenos Aires, which aimed to analyze psychiatric and psychoanalytic practice and knowledge through ethnographic fieldwork. The analysis reveals that the psychoanalytic approach is not only a resource for understanding the history of the patient but aims to produce legitimate versions of it. Through their interventions psychoanalysts create a narrative based on the story-lines emerging in the clinical interaction as a result of therapeutic suggestions and not as a product of the discovery of immanent conditions of the patient.