Processual Readings of the Drive Trajectory of a Perpetrator of Domestic Violence: Therapeutic Perspectives in the Prison Environment

In this article the author looks at the psychotherapeutic treatment of a patient imprisoned for acts of domestic violence. She describes how the inversion of the drive coordinates (in this case, hypercathecting thrust to the detriment of the aim, which is normally to reduce tension) can herald a surge in mastery, which is then difficult to contain within the ramparts of the therapeutic setting. The sensory dimension at work in the transference is mobilized to illustrate how withstanding mastery can perceptually serve to rehabilitate the aim to the detriment of the thrust. This reorganization of the drive coordinates serves to lower tension against the backdrop of a struggle against the loss of an object whose contours are already very precarious. While violent acting out may indeed be seen as a failure of symbolization, therapeutic work in prison seems to maintain in this restricted space the hallucinatory trace of the lost/found object in the transference. Capturing the object would illusorily circumscribe the risk, but it is precisely through the handling of the meaning and strength of the transference that the patient can be enabled to let go, thereby freeing the lost object, or rather its ghost, in favour of the experience of loss.