ADOLESCENT MENTAL HEALTH AND BACKGROUND TO SCHOOL RETURN: thinking about adolescent in pandemic
Adolescents; Covid-19 pandemic; Education; Psychoanalysis
ABSTRACT: Interdisciplinary and psychoanalytic approaches point out that becoming an adolescent in contemporary times is not an easy task. This period, between 10 and 19 years old, is associated, in contemporary times, with biological and psychological maturation, in addition to illness, in the form of a psychosocial crisis marked by the search for a place in the social and subjective world. The advent of the Covid-19 pandemic relates to this context by discouraging social interactions at a time when socializing with peers would gain priority. However, adolescents who faced withdrawal from social activities and school space now need to deal with the flexibilization of control measures and the return to a “new normal”. Exposed to intense tensions, adolescents in the pandemic deserve special attention in the form of reception and studies that understand their specific subjective demands. Thus, this study aims to analyze adolescent demands related to face-to-face school return after the easing of restrictive measures resulting from the Covid-19 pandemic in a public high school in the interior of Bahia in the light of the theoretical contribution of psychoanalysis. Thought from the Psychoanalysis and Education interface and aiming to act under the reality while knowledge is built, the methodological approach of the project involves an action research, with a qualitative approach and with a descriptive and exploratory character of its objectives. Free interviews, psychoanalytic conversation groups and field diaries will be used as data production tools. The research locus will be a public high school in the city of Irecê-Ba. There will be four weekly meetings, in the school environment, with a sample of up to 10 adolescents, and individual interview for evaluating the intervention at the end of the set of meetings. The data will be analyzed from the content analyses technique in relation to the theoretical contribution of Psychoanalysis to apprehend the subjective constructions of the adolescents themselves about the challenges of becoming adolescents in the pandemic and how these challenges are expressed in the form of school malaise. Results are going to be shared in a meeting with the school comunity, including teachers and school managers.