Prelude: ‘Global’ Psychoanalysis in Latin America: Some Reflections

Abstract

Although the reception and early circulation of psychoanalytic ideas and practice in Latin America have been largely ignored by most ‘global’ histories of psychoanalysis, in some major cities of the region psychoanalysis was known, discussed and practised earlier than in many European major cities. Today, some Latin American cities are considered as world centres for the practice and diffusion of psychoanalysis. Acknowledging that both ‘Latin America’ and ‘psychoanalysis’ are complex and polysemic concepts, this paper delineates some common characteristics of the process of reception of psychoanalysis in the region. Among other issues, I focus on: (a) the lack of a well-established psychiatric (or, more generally, scientific) tradition in Latin American countries at the beginning of the twentieth century that could offer strong resistance to the entrance of new theories. This provided conditions of possibility for a syncretic reception of psychoanalysis and other European theories; (b) the fact that, unlike other psychiatric theories that circulated in the early twentieth century, psychoanalysis was grounded in a strong theoretical apparatus (whether right or wrong, empirically demonstrable or not). Moreover, its theory could be applied not only to explain and treat many ‘mental disorders,’ but also to analyse social issues; (c) psychoanalysis, with its emphasis on unconscious desires, could be used as a battering ram against positivism at a moment in which Comte’s and Spencer’s theories were in crisis. Finally, the paper offers some reflections about a possible research agenda on the emergence of local ‘psychoanalytic cultures’ that take into consideration some Latin American cultural specificities.