Psychotherapeutic service for children who are victims of sexual violence: the "Sarauzinho" project

Abstract

This experiment report refers to the project named “Sarauzinho”, which is linked to the extension “Workshops of Psychoanalysis and Artistics Gatherings” project. “Sarauzinho” was a partnership between UNESP and CREAS, created with the aim to assist children victims of sexual violence though a playful and artistic method and to implement a psychoanalytic listening of demands that appeared during the working group implementation. At the same time, the parents/responsible person who took the children to the meetings also received psychotherapeutic service at the waiting room, in an operative group format with psychoanalytic listening. The project has happened in 11 sessions (once a week, two hours each), with 4 kids and 4 caregivers participating. The service for the kids was organized in workshop models (open and free) and in little gatherings, with preprogrammed contents (playful and artistic). The initiative was inspired by the “Green houses”, a creation of the French psychoanalyst Françoise Dolto, and by the Museum “Imagens do Inconsciente do Centro Psiquiátrico Pedro II”, in Nise da Silveira, Rio de Janeiro city. This university extension activity has enabled the students to access some of the children’s traumas, as well as to obtain a better understanding of an infantile group psychotherapeutic service, with psychoanalytic listening. Besides, it has provided a playful and artistic environment to listen to the children and enable them to create new meanings of their traumas. For the adult participants, the meetings were moments to talk about their anxieties and to receive new guidance and instructions about their children’s education, especially about sexuality. The results, either related to the children’s meeting, as to the adult’s meeting, were favorable to the continuity of the project.