Violence, narcisism and social bond in contemporary times: a psychoanalytical reading on the phenomenon of bullying among adolescents
bullying, psychoanalysis, adolescents, violence, narcissism
The present work aims to investigate how adolescents victims of intentional and repetitive aggressions, called bullying, subjectively elaborate the experience of this type of violence in contemporary times. The methodology adopted was the case study in psychoanalysis based on the treatment of students from a public school in Salvador / Bahia who volunteered to participate, as they consider themselves targets of the phenomenon of bullying. From the psychoanalytic theory of Freud and Lacan, the concept of adolescence was defined as a moment of crossing between childhood and adulthood, in which, besides bodily pubertal changes and the encounter with sex, the displacement of the representatives of the Other was emphasized in their migration from the ‘parental Other’ to the ‘social Other’, since the look and the signifiers of the peers exert great influence in phenomenon of bullying. This phenomenon was read based on Freud-Lacanian psychoanalysis from the concepts of narcissism, mirror stage and Schema L. The context of contemporary society marked by consumerism, individualism and narcissism, which resulted in permissiveness, the increase of the narcissistic image and the spectacularization of life, was set based on a sociological, philosophical and psychoanalytical reading. About the phenomenon in question, it was possible to reflect on the use of the term bullying in current discourse, since it is currently applied to several behaviours that go beyond the limit of its formal definition, trivializing its use. Such discursive practice is related to the contemporary context of victimization of the individual. Regarding the results obtained, it was considered that the capitalist discourse, which imposes the satisfaction of autonomous jouissance and the culture of a happy life, contributes to the increase in violence in schools, predatory relationships and the difficulty in tolerating differences and otherness. In addition, the culture of narcissism gives primacy to the recording of the look, in which the subjects alternate on the basis of desire and discomfort in being seen by the other. Thus, bullying as a narcissistic aggression is considered a contemporary symptom.