THE CHALLENGE OF WORKING WITH TEENAGERS IN CONFLICT WITH THE LAW: PSYCHODYNAMIC WORK INTERVENTION

Abstract

Socio-educational Reintegration Workers play a role in the custody, safety and monitoring of teenagers, complying with socio-educational measures for having infringed the law according to Brazil’s Child and Teenager Statute. This study in terms of public policies has to do with education and sanction. Further, it discusses collective defense strategies from social reintegration workers, who deal on a daily basis with teenagers in conflict with the law. The methodology applied is based upon Work Psychodynamics.  The study concludes that given their strong unity, social reintegration workers protect themselves from work-related pathologies given that they preserve themselves from isolation by inserting themselves in a space of intersubjective relations that support their work and keep them from fear and anxiety. Collective strength comes through cooperation built around the almost prison-like discipline shown towards teenagers deprived of their freedom. This discipline disguises a collective defense strategy that denies the fact that teenagers in conflict with the law are in a vulnerable psychosocial situation. This collective defense strategy serves under current work conditions to protect social reintegration workers from the fear of building a close relationship with teenagers given the certainty that this relationship will leave the first group at risk and unprotected.