Brazilian Psychosocial Histories of Psychoanalysis

This edited volume provides a critical history of psychoanalysis in Brazil. Written mainly by Brazilian historians and practitioners of psychoanalysis, the chapters address some central questions about psychoanalysis' social role. How did psychoanalysis develop and flourish in a society in which modernisation was accompanied by inequality, authoritarianism and violence? How did psychoanalysis survive in Brazil alongside censorship and repression? Through a variety of lenses, the contributors demonstrate how psychoanalysis in Brazil presented itself as progressive and transformative and maintained this self-image even as it developed institutional structures that reproduce the authoritarianism of the wider society.

This novel work offers rich conceptual and practical insights for academic researchers and practitioners of psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic psychotherapy, and addresses methodological questions of concern to academics working across the social sciences. Crucially, it also outlines a distinctive vision of psychoanalysis seen through a Brazilian lens, which will be of interest to readers seeking to confront the Eurocentric and North American bias of much psychoanalytic debate.

Belinda Mandelbaum is Associate Professor in the Department of Social and Work Psychology at the Psychology Institute, University of São Paulo, Brazil.

Stephen Frosh is Professor in the Department of Psychosocial Studies at Birkbeck, University of London, United Kingdom.

Rafael Alves Lima is Researcher at the Laboratory of Social Theory, Philosophy and Psychoanalysis at the University of São Paulo, Brazil.