From offering words to investing in social bonds: conversation as a methodological device for research in Psychoanalysis

Abstract

In this article, we propose to delimit the use of conversation specifically as a research method in Psychoanalysis, in order to reflect on its clinical and institutional impasses and possibilities. Through bibliographic research, the methodological path was designed as follows: we started from the circumscription of research in Psychoanalysis, which prioritizes the subject and their knowledge based on the notions of the unconscious, transference, and free association. Next, we proceeded to present conversation as a research and intervention device in Psychoanalysis, based on its context of emergence and the characterization of its mode of operation. Finally, we addressed conversation as a bet on the social bond and a way of treating the real. As a result, we found that more than a simple research method, conversation also constitutes an intervention in the field under investigation, whose objective is to touch the subject’s real point, allowing not only individual narratives to emerge, but also the nonsense that causes surprise. Conversations are, above all, a research methodology that focuses on social bonds and serves as a way of dealing with reality. In this sense, a methodological device should not be understood only as a means of data collection, but as an instrument capable of producing new knowledge and enabling interventions.