Interpretações de linguagens artísticas em Gerd Bornheim

Este estudo propõe uma leitura histórico-cultural das interpretações de Gerd Bornheim (1929-2002), destacando a temática da linguagem, sobretudo das linguagens artísticas. A partir dessas expressões, as colocações críticas de Bornheim a respeito da estética e filosofia da arte apresentam um panorama dos questionamentos. Nesse sentido, são notáveis em seus trabalhos as reflexões sobre o teatro e a música. A linguagem teatral permite o acesso às outras atividades artísticas (poesia, música, artes plásticas, cinema) de forma livre e aberta. A linguagem musical, em consonância com a teatral, corrobora a pesquisa de Bornheim, que observou o processo criativo, a comunicação, o papel da interpretação (advento da crítica) e as rupturas nas poéticas contemporâneas. Tal itinerário sublinha a pesquisa que Bornheim realizou na França nas décadas de 1950 e 1960-70. O estímulo dessa atmosfera, marcada pelo diálogo entre filosofia, ciências sociais, psicologia, psicanálise, história, antropologia, linguística, comunicação, teatro e música foi decisivo para ele. Esses pontos são importantes para a apreensão do tema da linguagem e sua ambiência histórica, na qual Bornheim revela outras perspectivas de pesquisa. O pano de fundo é a crise da metafísica e os novos parâmetros para se pensar a dialética, a teoria e a prática. O diagnóstico de tal crise estende-se também à estética. Por conseguinte, o entendimento das ideias de Bornheim conduz aos temas da diferença e alteridade na contemporaneidade. Com isso, persegue-se um percurso temático que aborda: a linguagem e o problema da comunicação a partir da ligação das interpretações de Bornheim com as de Sartre e Merleau-Ponty. Além disso, o surgimento da crítica e os questionamentos da normatividade ética e estética levam à discussão das motivações coincidentes entre artes e ciências. Por fim, a linguagem musical enfatiza ainda o processo de transformação da subjetividade, que propicia uma percepção mais ampla das expressões artísticas e culturais.

La grammaire de soi ; l’enquête psychanalytique, un mode d’organisation des interactions propre aux sociétés démocratiques contemporaines

Une multitude de gens, au XXe siècle, se sont servis de la psychanalyse pour se rendre compte de leurs faits et gestes. En s’appuyant ainsi sur la psychanalyse, ils démontraient la profondeur de la confiance qu’ils lui accordaient. Cette diffusion ample et profonde, qui a laissé une empreinte très marquée sur la culture contemporaine, demeure largement inexpliquée. Ce phénomène étonnant devient intelligible dès lors qu’on aborde la psychanalyse comme une grammaire de l’intériorité, qui a guidé des interactions en les médiatisant par des symboles et des significations communes (normes, valeurs, etc.) propres aux sociétés démocratiques contemporaines (celles qui se conçoivent comme émanant d’un accord entre individus). Cette pratique sociale, l’enquête psychanalytique, peut être analysée en situant dans leurs contextes d’interactions les discours dans lesquels des désirs refoulés étaient imputés à différentes conduites. L’œuvre de Freud offre un échantillon de tels discours. La description de la forme et du sens que ces imputations de désirs refoulés conféraient à différentes interactions en cours nous permet d’identifier les traits caractéristiques de l’enquête psychanalytique. Freud montre que le refoulement naît d’un conflit entre une volonté présociale refoulée et une volonté socialisée, refoulante, née des exigences inculquées par l’autorité parentale. Pour identifier un désir refoulé, il faut donc simultanément identifier une relation refoulante. L’enquête psychanalytique amène à passer en revue les différentes relations interpersonnelles et intrapersonnelles dans lesquelles est impliqué l’auteur du refoulement. Cet exercice permet de départager les relations qui contraignent la volonté intérieure présociale à des exigences sociales de celles qui, en sens inverse, émanent de cette volonté intérieure. Comme les premières suscitent le refoulement et les symptômes indésirables qu’il entraîne, la guérison du refoulement exige que le porteur du refoulement prenne ses distances des exigences sociales héritées, de manière à parvenir à reconnaître sa volonté présociale. En soupesant ainsi la contrainte exercée sur les volontés présociales par les relations particulières, l’enquête psychanalytique jaugeait ces dernières à partir d’une exigence propre aux sociétés démocratiques contemporaines : celle de fonder les relations sociales sur les volontés non contraintes des partenaires. L’enquête psychanalytique participait ainsi d’un imaginaire social moderne qui donnait, à des relations variées, la forme d’un contrat. Les contemporains qui recouraient à cette enquête manifestaient un souci de respecter cette exigence et ils suscitaient une réaction critique envers les relations qui contraignaient la volonté. En somme, l’enquête psychanalytique offrait aux contemporains une manière d’ordonner les relations qui était adaptée à une société accordant une autorité prééminente aux exigences « contractuelles ». Voilà qui explique en grande partie l’ampleur et la profondeur de la diffusion de la psychanalyse au XXe siècle.

Unfree associations : inside psychoanalytic institutes

In an age of managed care and new biological therapies for mental illness, psychoanalysis is generally seen as a 'profession on the ropes' whose hour is up. What went wrong? While external factors have played their part in the fall of psychoanalysis, psychoanalysts have generally disregarded their own crucial role in creating this decline. This thesis examines this role as played out through their own institutions, the freestanding psychoanalytic institutes. Freud was an explorer but he also codified his ideas. His work has been taken as an inspiration to explore without presuppositions but also as Holy Writ. Psychoanalysis deals with emotions and excites passions. Like religion, psychoanalysis asks big questions, and, like religion, is easily influenced and seduced by dogmatic answers to these difficult questions. Psychoanalytic institutes have been notable as closed shops. Their solid walls have kept them sealed off and mysterious to the outside world, including the mental health professions and the academy. Authoritarian cliques, power struggles and intrigues have predominated inside the institutes. Institute life has been secret, the subject of rumour rather than knowledge. Insiders often know little about of other institutes (unless they are involved in site visits to particular institutes). Sometimes, insiders have a limited view of their own institutions because they see them through the vantage points of their own experience and that of some close colleagues. I have interviewed central participants of the dramas of the histories of some key psychoanalytic institutes in the US. For the first time, this thesis recounts the intricate inside history of these organizations. The thesis reveals the detailed inner political histories of arguably the four most important and varied psychoanalytic institutes affiliated with the APsaA. The New York Psychoanalytic Institute was the first and for decades the prestigious institute which set the model for many others. It became pre-eminent on a world scale with the immigration of leading European analysts fleeing the Nazis. The Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute, the Chicago Psychoanalytic Institute and the Los Angeles Psychoanalytic Society and Institute are quite varied in their organization and histories. The cultures are often quite different yet many of the problems will be found to be similar at base. I first examine the detailed political history of the New York Psychoanalytic Institute which provides a quintessential example of analytic anointment in practice, together with its pitfalls. I then examine a split that occurred in the Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute, which demonstrates some of the tensions and ambiguities that seem inherent in psychoanalytic organizations, especially where society and institute are part of the same institution. I move on to investigate a very different history in the Chicago Psychoanalytic Institute, which is quite differently organized: in Chicago, the institute with a lay Board of Trustees is quite separate from the society, and has for most of its history been headed by a powerful director. Then I look at the very complex history of the Los Angeles Psychoanalytic Society and Institute which in the 1970s came very close to being closed down by the APsaA. The Los Angeles Institute history is especially colourful and informative, given the introduction of Kleinian and object relations ideas into the institute and the reactions to them. These histories provide dramatic insights into what psychoanalysts and their institutions have contributed to what has gone wrong with psychoanalysis from the basis of a critique. A major aspect of the problem, in my view, is that a basically humanistic discipline has conceived and touted itself as a positivist science while organizing itself institutionally as a religion. I argue that psychoanalysts approach psychoanalysis with an inappropriate paradigm, 'as if it were a science. Their systemic misconception of their own discipline, and the resultant, widespread creation of what Christopher Bollas calls a 'false expertise' contributes to their present-day decline. I argue that qualification from an institute assumes the transmission of a body of knowledge which has not really been established as knowledge. This presumed knowledge is then transmitted by means of anointment reminiscent of the Bible. There is no unified body of knowledge within the psychoanalytic field nor is there a unified practice that can be readily empirically tested. Therefore, by default, psychoanalytic education has become a process of anointment, transmission through a subjective process akin to consecration. The large gap between the small knowledge base of psychoanalysis and the high level of 'pretend' knowledge which is inculcated during training and upon which qualification is based entrench conditions which themselves make real knowledge in this complex field more and more difficult to attain. This argument has implications not only for psychoanalysis but for many other professions where knowledge and qualification have unrealistic and inappropriate bases.

The War Memoirs: Some origins of the thought of W.R. Bion

The work of W. R. Bion changed the shape of psychoanalytic theory in fundamental ways, one of the most important of which was Bion's insight into the nature of normal projective identification. No other psychoanalytic theorist has Bion's ability to represent the horrors of psychic abandonment and the converse, the absolute necessity of the presence of another mind for psychic survival. Through a discussion of Bion's War Memoirs 1917-1919 (Bion, 1997), Attacks on linking and A theory of thinking (1993), this paper explores the link between war, masculinity, the maternal and Bion's sensitivity to the significance of everyday interpersonal contact. It is argued that Bion's apocalyptic experiences as a teenage tank commander gave him shattering insight into the extent to which mind is inter-mind, self is inter-self. Bion's life writing has the quality of survivor insight: 'And only I am escaped alone to tell thee' (Job 1: 14-19), as he returns repeatedly to the events of the day when he 'died ', 8 August 1918. His insight into the elemental passions nature of love, hate and mindlessness are borne of his experiences on the battlefield, and exquisitely crystallized in his repeated explorations of an encounter with a dying soldier.

Considerações históricas sobre a difusão do pensamento Kleiniano no Brasil

This article describes the different moments that characterized the diffusion of Kleinian thought in psychoanalytic societies in Brazil. The article results from qualitative historical research based on interviews with thirteen psychoanalysts who participated in this process of diffusion. The first influences appeared in 1950, v pioneers trained either in Britain or in Argentina. The areas in which the Kleinians were pioneers -psychoanalysis of children and of psychotics - were the first aspects dealt with by this group in Brazil. Between 1950 and 1970 very dogmatic approaches were taken toward Kleinian ideas. As of 1980, with the publication of new, translations of Melanie Klein work and with the introduction of contemporary Kleinian thought, a more balanced use of this theoretical-technical model could been seen.

Zaira de Bittencourt Martins: pioneira da psicanálise de crianças no Rio Grande do Sul

The objective of the present article is to introduce Zaira de Bittencourt Martins’s contributions to psychoanalysis in Rio Grande do Sul, identifying her as pioneer in child psychoanalysis in this State. Starting from a historic research based on interviews with psychoanalysts, bibliographical sources and contacts with relatives, the author composed a biographical outline of the psychoanalyst above mentioned. Zaira Martins, together with her husband, the psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Mario Martins, immigrated to Argentina in 1944, and in 1947 was recognized as an analyst by the Argentinian Psychoanalytic Association. On her return to Brazil she became the first non physician woman to make part of the Psychoanalytic Society of Porto Alegre, collaborating with her foundation, in 1963. She played the pioneer role as child psychoanalyst and contributed in the dissemination of Kleinian ideas in her State. She also contributed in the formation of young analysts who were beginners in the child analyst field, through courses and supervisions.

Apuntes para una biografía de Bela Székely (1892-1955)

A pesar de su vasta actividad periodística y académica, son escasos los datos que el psicoanalista, periodista y psicólogo Bela Székely dejó acerca de su vida personal y profesional. La reconstrucción de su biografía parece un rompecabezas con piezas procedentes de diferentes fuentes, que más de una vez resultan contradictorias. En este trabajo se reúne información disponible en castellano, alemán y húngaro, con el fin de permitir que futuras investigaciones sobre la vida y la obra de esta figura multifacética se asienten sobre una base histórica fiable. Más allá de los datos biográficos sobre Bela Székely, el trabajo aborda en detalle los primeros años de su estadía en la Argentina (1938-1942), período en el cual su destino profesional se entrelazó con desarrollos cruciales en el campo 'psi' argentino

Apuntes para una biografía de Bela Székely (1892-1955)

A pesar de su vasta actividad periodística y académica, son escasos los datos que el psicoanalista, periodista y psicólogo Bela Székely dejó acerca de su vida personal y profesional. La reconstrucción de su biografía parece un rompecabezas con piezas procedentes de diferentes fuentes, que más de una vez resultan contradictorias. En este trabajo se reúne información disponible en castellano, alemán y húngaro, con el fin de permitir que futuras investigaciones sobre la vida y la obra de esta figura multifacética se asienten sobre una base histórica fiable. Más allá de los datos biográficos sobre Bela Székely, el trabajo aborda en detalle los primeros años de su estadía en la Argentina (1938-1942), período en el cual su destino profesional se entrelazó con desarrollos cruciales en el campo 'psi' argentino

Apuntes para una biografía de Bela Székely (1892-1955)

A pesar de su vasta actividad periodística y académica, son escasos los datos que el psicoanalista, periodista y psicólogo Bela Székely dejó acerca de su vida personal y profesional. La reconstrucción de su biografía parece un rompecabezas con piezas procedentes de diferentes fuentes, que más de una vez resultan contradictorias. En este trabajo se reúne información disponible en castellano, alemán y húngaro, con el fin de permitir que futuras investigaciones sobre la vida y la obra de esta figura multifacética se asienten sobre una base histórica fiable. Más allá de los datos biográficos sobre Bela Székely, el trabajo aborda en detalle los primeros años de su estadía en la Argentina (1938-1942), período en el cual su destino profesional se entrelazó con desarrollos cruciales en el campo 'psi' argentino

After Freud: the fateful history of psychoanalysis in exile

 This thesis reorients studies of the history of psychoanalysis away from the conventional interest in institutionalization, medicalization, and the history of the movement. With its emphasis on the “peculiar nature” of Freud’s discovery, my work uncovers the structural necessity of exile for the vocation of analyst as Freud conceived it.

Psychoanalysis and Performance

Kear, Adrian, Campbell, Patrick, Psychoanalysis and Performance (London: Routledge, 2001), pp.xiv+242 RAE2008