SPIRITUALITY AND LISTENING: THEORETICAL-PASTORAL FOUNDATIONS AND CONTRIBUTIONS OF PSYCHOANALYSIS TO THE INSTITUTIONAL CARE OF CHILDREN AND ADOLESCENTS

Abstract

This article articulates, through a theoretical essay associated with an experience report, the theological-pastoral foundation of listening with the institutional care of children and adolescents, proposing a dialogue between the theological tradition of the cure of souls, psychoanalytic clinical practice, and the human sciences. It is argued that listening cannot be reduced to the auditory reception of a discourse, but constitutes a theologically grounded practice that is, at the same time, ethically committed to the alterity of the other. Authors from pastoral theology, psychoanalysis, dialogical philosophy, and comprehensive sociology are mobilized to theoretically situate this listening. The methodology is qualitative and descriptive, based on a theoretical review and on the analysis of an emblematic case drawn from eight years of experience directing a shelter institution for children and adolescents in the capital of Paraíba, Brazil. The results show, through the case of an adolescent referred by the Juvenile Court, that qualified listening allows behaviors initially interpreted as inappropriate to be understood as expressions of previous experiences of deprivation and suffering. It is concluded that listening, whether pastoral, clinical, or institutional, constitutes the very condition of possibility of care, integrating disciplined disposition, a sustaining relational environment, an ethical response to the call of the other, and a comprehensive epistemic stance.