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This article is the result of a study on Psychoanalysis and Racial Matters which has been conducted by a group of black Brazilian psychoanalysts affiliated to the Círculo Psicanalítico de Minas Gerais – CPMG, Brazil. Even though Brazil is a multiracial and miscegenetic country, the lowest levels of the social pyramid have always been occupied by its black citizens who represent almost half of the Brazilian population. Therefore, the idea that people have about blacks is that they are ugly, dirty and weak: the image of failure. In this article we have considered the effects that are caused by this imaginary psychic register which has been historically produced on the psyche of the black Brazilian. Although Psychoanalysis has had significant influence on mental health in Brazil, it has made little or no contribution to the understanding of this matter. To further our comprehension of this enigma, we pose the question: what does a psychoanalyst hear when a black person speaks?
Trauma Lives in Speech
(2002)
The author approaches the topic through infant observation. At the age of eight months the baby moves in the borderland between the physical and the symbolic. When the baby hurts herself, she needs the mother's arms to protect her: at the same time, her budding spoken symbol >mama< is comforting in itself, it carries the memory of the mother's arms. Can speech – tone of voice, rhythm, pauses – and the moments of loss, absence, the losing of self also be intertwined? The author discusses the question of how trauma starts to live in speech through two patients. She talks about >a silent language< which speaks in between the words and sentences – changes the rhythm of speech, makes lose words, tears a hole in speech. This >silent language< talks about trauma, reaches for its very essence – a bodily experience and meaning to the wholeness/ disruption of self.
To fully develop a science of social character, three aspects of Fromm's social character theory need to be clarified. The first has to do with the difference between individual and social character. Fromm expanded on Freud's description of normal types: erotic (receptive), obsessive (hoarding) and narcissistic (exploitative). Besides the concept of social character, Fromm made three major contributions to the psychoanalytic theory of character: the concept of productiveness, sociopolitical modes of relationship, and the marketing character. Social character is an interac-tion between internalized culture (values) and individual character. This interaction results in variations in social character and helps explain the Secon issue, how so-cial character changes. The concept of social selection explains how narcissistic en-trepreneurs restructure social institutions to shape a new social character. The third issue concerns how social character develops throughout the life cycle. Fromm never offered a developmental theory. Erik Erikson's model of development fit the social character of America at the mid-century. A revision of this model provides a useful construct for understanding changes in the kind of problems being brought to psychoanalysis at the start of the 21st century and also changes in psychoanalytic practice.
An etymology of a biophilia is Latin and is also mentioned with the instinct of the preservation of race as defined in Japanese-English dictionaries, in American dictionaries it is defined as an appreciation for life. And also bio is life and philia is love in Greek. The preface of >The Revolution of Hope< as described by Erich Fromm who is an American philosopher is a reference for biophilia. He described >The love of life< which exists in most of us is a latent power that is mobilized and whose behavior can change and can bring about change when life is threatened by danger and is fully recognized.
Three distinct, yet overlapping, phases of treatment emerge when working with some borderline and psychotic patients. This are patients who test the ordinary limits of psychoanalysis, but can profit from its deep exploration. The first phase is colored by acting out, interpersonally and intrapsychically. An analytic envelope of containment is necessary to sustain the treatment. Interpretive holding and containing help the patient find a psychic receptacle capable of detoxifying violent projections. Many of these patients terminate prematurely. The second phase is centered around the patient's defensive use of the death instinct to extinguish or destroy certain parts of their mental functioning. This difficult standoff between parts of the patient's mind becomes replicated in the transference. The third phase reveals the more fundamental problem of paranoid~schizoid anxieties of loss and primitive experiences of guilt. These include fears of persecution and annihilation. Some patients abort treatment in the first or second phase and never work through the phantasies and feelings of loss. Nevertheless, much intrapsychic and interpersonal progress is possible. Given the instability and chaotic nature of these patient's object relations, the analyst must be cautiously optimistic in their work and realize the potential to help the patient even when presented with less than optimal working conditions.
Our profession is being challenged theoretically and by practical realities. Many of its basic premises are being questioned and a hostile managed care bureaucracy has been curtailing treatment opportunities. These challenges force a latent issue into full view: Is psychoanalytic wisdom tied to its dogma and technical rituals or can much of its wisdom be integrated into a more inclusive interdisciplinary perspective? Psychoanalysis has a history of resisting change. It defined too early what was and what was not to be considered psychoanalysis. Dogmatization made idols out of theories and the rituals of techniques. Theories are valuable tools only and not scientific truth. While in-stitutes and official sanctions have lacked in open-mindedness, the unofficial practicing psychoanalyst has been far more creative in adapting psychoanaly-sis to the patient's needs and embracing the freedom to develop his or her idio-syncratic ways, wisdom, and skills. We need to increase our therapeutic reper-toire beyond those that carry the label of psychoanalysis. I present some con-siderations that derive from my experience as a psychoanalytically trained dy-namic psychotherapist.
Our profession is being challenged theoretically and by practical realities. Many of its basic premises are being questioned and a hostile managed care bureaucracy has been curtailing treatment opportunities. These challenges force a latent issue into full view: Is psychoanalytic wisdom tied to its dogma and technical rituals or can much of its wisdom be integrated into a more inclusive interdisciplinary perspective? Psychoanalysis has a history of resisting change. It defined too early what was and what was not to be considered psychoanalysis. Dogmatization made idols out of theories and the rituals of techniques. Theories are valuable tools only and not scientific truth. While institutes and official sanctions have lacked in open-mindedness, the unofficial practicing psychoanalyst has been far more creative in adapting psychoanalysis to the patient's needs and embracing the freedom to develop his or her idiosyncratic ways, wisdom, and skills. We need to increase our therapeutic repertoire beyond those that carry the label of psychoanalysis. I present some considerations that derive from my experience as a psychoanalytically trained dynamic psychotherapist.