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This article discusses the fear of violence in the reception area of an establishment for the legal protection of adults. The work carried out with the actors in the methodological framework of a clinical psychosociological intervention highlights the organizational and institutional construction of the fear of violence felt by reception personnel when the plan to withdraw the reception counter security glass was announced. Two hypotheses concerning its internal genesis are put forward: first, a denial of the public’s demand for recognition and the relationship that exceeds the object of need; and second, the past treatment of violence by means of material modifications which reify collective thinking and prevent the constitution of an institutional container. The concept of metaphoro-meonymic oscillation (Rosolato) throws light on the resumption of the collective process of thinking in interventions.