Psychoanalysis and Brazil: Colonialism and Creativity

In-house talk and Q&A with Belinda Mandelbaum and Stephen Frosh, chaired by Jamie Ruers 

As part of our Freud and Latin America exhibition programme, Belinda Mandelbaum and Stephen Frosh will discuss themes of colonialism and creativity in relation to psychoanalysis in Brazil. Drawing on work that comes out of their co-edited volume (with Rafael Alves Lima) Brazilian Psychosocial Histories of Psychoanalysis (Palgrave, 2021), Mandelbaum and Frosh will look to unpack the often-troubling histories of Brazilian psychoanalysis.

Questions around the complicity of the psychoanalytic institutions with the civil-military dictatorship, the ‘anthropophagy’ (swallowing) of ‘European’ theoretical constructs, and a tendency to reproduce hierarchical systems of control during the dictatorship years, will be analysed alongside other more progressive psychoanalytic narratives that tell a story of the emergence of possibilities for creative expressions of freedom.
By focussing on the place and function of psychoanalysis in Brazil, it becomes apparent how, in the words of this evening’s speakers, psychoanalysis as a discipline is susceptible, ‘to restrictions and/or opportunities allowed by the political contexts in which it develops’.

This discussion will be chaired by the curator of the Freud and Latin America exhibition, Jamie Ruers.

Image by Severino Borges
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Belinda Mandelbaum is a psychoanalyst and full professor of the Department of Social Psychology at the University of São Paulo, where she coordinates the Laboratory of Family, Gender Relations and Sexuality Studies. She is the author of books and papers published in Brazilian and international journals. She is the co-editor with Stephen Frosh and Rafael A. Lima of Brazilian Psychosocial Histories of Psychoanalysis (Palgrave Macmillan, 2021).

Stephen Frosh is Emeritus Professor of Psychology at Birkbeck, University of London and an Academic Associate of the British Psychoanalytical Society. He is the author of many books and academic papers, most recently Antisemitism and Racism: Ethical Challenges for Psychoanalysis (Bloomsbury, 2023) and Those Who Come After: Postmemory, Acknowledgement and Forgiveness (Palgrave, 2019). He is co-editor, with Belinda Mandelbaum and Rafael Alves Lima, of Brazilian Psychosocial Histories of Psychoanalysis (Palgrave, 2021).

Jamie Ruers is an art historian working in museums. She managed the events programme at the Freud Museum until 2023 and is now the events coordinator at the Foundling Museum. She co-hosts the podcast, Freud in Focus with Tom DeRose. She is the co-editor of Freud/Lynch: Behind the Curtain (Karnac, 2022) and curator of the Freud Museum’s current exhibition, Freud and Latin America.

Doors will open at 6:30pm for a 7pm start.

Freud Museum Members and Patrons receive 20% off the standard ticket price on all events, courses, conferences and On Demand programming.

A limited number of bursary places are available for those unable to pay the full amount. Please email [email protected] to apply for a bursary.

The purpose of this event is to raise funds for the Freud Museum London, which receives no regular public income.