Serendipity and psychoanalytical research situation in the context of psychoanalytical presentation of patients

Abstract

The author characterizes and opposes psychoanalytic clinical listening and everyday socia listening. He takes, as a model, the notion of "azimuth" and the expression "in every azimuth" in order to illustrate that, in the field of psychoanalysis, the clinical observation of the researcher is carried out through an evenly suspended listening, "in every azimuth", i. e., in every means and in every direction. The author also utilizes the Freudian notion of "Nachträglichkeit", translated by French psychoanalysts by "aprèscoup" and by Brazilian as "só-depois" (Magno, 1983) and "no relance" (Caon, 1996). In accordance to the psychoanalytic method of observation, the author rescues unequivocally a notion from the word "serendipity", presented timidly in several handbooks of methodology of psychological research. (Bachrach, 1974, p.5-6 e 8-14 and McGuigan, 1976, p. 56) The author proposes "serendipity" as a fundamental attitude and device for the psychoanalytic research situation and reaffirms the scientificity of the psychoanalytic method

Serendipity; psychoanalytic situation of research; psychoanalytic presentation of patients