Um corpo para (de)marcar-se: estudo psicanalítico acerca das escarificações na adolescência

Abstract

The present research is about self-injurious behavior on teenagers, specifically skin cutting disorder. The study arose from clinical listening of two patients followed up in psychotherapy for marking their skin with such wound. This phenomenon, known as cutting on social networks, advances reaching proportions of a worldwide epidemic. This project aimed to understand this issue, widespread among teenage audiences, from listening them. To achieve this purpose four students of both sexes were interviewed, aged from fifteen to seventeen, and added the clinical cases which led to the investigation, to sign the possible therapeutic effects for this demand. Psychoanalysis, through metapsychological concepts, served as theoretical goal and backup for the interviews. It was found that adolescents use the body to stage the psychic malaise due to a symbolic precariousness and express a thought directed to acting, without the operation of an intermediary. The wounds and scars are hieroglyphics, marked on the epidermis, addressed to the Other, by seeking recognition and intervention. Despite the peculiarities of each case, the cuts work as strategy to ensure survival face an overwhelming anxiety. They can also be considered an act of passage and continuation of itself as an alternative to circumvent annihilation. It is concluded that scarification are not suicidal acts, but are preceded by milder self-injurious behavior and, if not translated in time, can become more violent acts against themselves.