Proposal of intervention on family violence: an approach according to the function and sense of the violent phenomenon in family dynamics

Abstract

The article presents a strategy for interventions on family violence, starting from a conceptual resignification of the notion of violence and a proposition regarding its function and meaning. Violence is conceived as a force of symbolic nature that is inherent to the family system and has the function of maintaining, modifying or substituting the bonds, thus resulting in their reorganization. Its sense is approached under the connotations of meaning, purpose, and orientation, that constitute the discursive nature which violence entails given its symbolic quality. The intervention is supported in an analytical model that privileges the subjects’ words. Through the analysis, subjects will understand how their family history, the places and functions of its members, the way these are carried out, and their expectations about them, favor the expression of violence as a means of facing the failure of every familiar system.