From rivalry to accountability: psychoanalytic reflections on restorative justice

Abstract

A number of interventions have included horizontal relationships betting on the circulation of the word as a condition for inscribing a distance able to produce a closer bond with the other. This article considers the functions of the other, addresses the relationship with similar others by highlighting the elements raised by Lacan in Hamlet and demonstrating that it is beyond the rivalry with similar others that the fulfilment of Hamlet's desire (Lacan, 1959/86) enters the game. Our strategy will be the presentation of two scenes of intervention with adolescents in conflict with the law, one of whom in a process of restorative justice. We shall take the consequences of this analysis regarding the possibility and conditions of horizontality in the relations, particularly in interventions with adolescents in conflict with the law, aiming at responsibility as a construction which operates in the encounter with the other.