Relational psychoanalysis in the teaching clinic: contributions to the ethical training of psychotherapists

Abstract

This article proposes a reflection on relational psychoanalysis as a clinical practice and its contribution to the training of psychotherapists during the mandatory final internship in Psychology. Based on theoretical review and adapted clinical case reports experienced at the teaching clinic of the Faculdade da Amazônia (UNAMA), the intersubjective bond is highlighted as the central axis of listening, shifting the focus away from classical intrapsychic models of Freudian orthodoxy. The relational attitude is sustained by presence, rêverie, affective involvement, bodily listening, and ethical recognition—dimensions that guide the clinical gesture and the posture of the therapist in training. These axes demonstrate that psychic suffering, as a lived, situated, and shared experience, can be reworked and alleviated through the horizon of meanings that emerge from the analytic encounter. The clinical case reports were written in the first person, inspired by Mauro Amatuzzi’s (1996) proposal on the version of meaning, and confidentiality was preserved through ethical and narrative adjustments. The work shows that, in supervised internship, relational clinical practice transforms not only the patient but also the therapist in training.