A listening function in a higher education institution

Abstract

The aim of this work is to deal with the models of psychoanalytic intervention in support of the development of relational competence within the school organization. For this purpose, through the reporting methodology, we will discuss the construction of a psychotherapeutic function within a service of “counselling and psychological support in the context of strategies to prevent disadvantage and early school leaving” in a Roman high school. We intend to highlight how an interpretation of the social mandate regarding dropout and early school leaving through a model of intervention that considers not the individual, but the individual – context relationship, has allowed the promotion of relational competence in a way that was useful for the achievement of the school’s objectives. First, a critical synthesis of the history of psychological intervention in the school, from the roles that organized it to the laws that regulated its presence, will be proposed by reconstructing the culture that has contributed to the current symbolisation of this intervention as mainly individualistic. Then, we will propose the usefulness, for psychotherapeutic intervention in the school, of a model of the individual – context relationship; finally, we will account for how the intervention has developed within the school.