Dreaming and Elaborating: Dream Group as a Care Device for Adolescents Victims of Sexual Abuse

Abstract

Sexual violence is a social phenomenon composed of multiple elements, involving cultural, social, economic, and political aspects, which manifest in class, gender, and race/ethnicity relations. In the case of children and adolescents, it is reinforced by the legitimized invisibility and the condition of ownership imposed on them, being produced by power relations. The aim of this article is to present a care device for adolescent victims of sexual abuse, consisting of a therapeutic group that uses dream narration as a mediator. This is the presentation of partial results from doctoral research, conducted in a health service that provides care for children and adolescents who are victims of sexual abuse. From a psychoanalytic perspective, the research aimed to investigate aspects of sociopolitical suffering involving the dynamics of family relationships using dream narration as a resource for accessing the unconscious. The data production involved bibliographical research, individual interviews, dream recordings by the participants for two months, and, finally, the conduction of four group meetings, which functioned both as a data production tool and as a care device. Considering the perspective that dreams are the very expression of intersubjectivity, we aimed to explore this space of sharing, placing dreams as mediators in the relationship between participants. It was observed that elaborations were made from collective associations, which were interpreted by the group itself with the mediation of the researcher. The main content categories identified were: 1) dreams with trauma, with the denied experience, and 2) attempts at elaboration, with dreams of survivors without the expected support. Additionally, it was observed that the participants found containment in the group, with mutual identification and support, which had significant reverberations in the life of each adolescent.