published on 19.08.2022 13:08

(Credit: Alexandria/Pixabay)

There are many factors that affect people’s mental health, and political polarization is increasingly damaging relationships, sometimes threatening individual freedom. How does psychoanalysis see this clash of political sides? What kind of problems do they bring to the mental health of a citizen?

The psychoanalyst, member of the Escola de Psicanálise dos Fórums do Campo Lacaniano, PUC/SP PhD in Psychology and publisher Fernanda Zacharevic of Aller Editora, presents several works that help analysts and all those interested in Freud’s treatment to understand how these encounters affect them.

Psychoanalysis and the pandemic

This work offers a rather uncomfortable perspective: the point of view of necropolitics. Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, Brazil was already displaying its hate speech, prejudice and disrespect for people. The last elections were marked by these themes, the destruction of the different and the neglect of minorities. And all the evil delusions that manifest in the culture of the social media spectacle have ended up stimulating violent behavior and stealing (through fear) people’s right to self-expression, which for Freud is a pernicious path laid inside the human psyche. .

In view of this approach, Fernanda explains that the work in analysis is precisely so that the subject can recognize his own uniqueness and how to relate to others, based on his own trait. “To be included in a society where difference causes irritation that should be erased or even destroyed, causes serious damage to the mental health of the citizen, and also endangers his physical integrity, encouraging expressions of intolerance or redistributing funds to projects that support hatred of difference .”

Essays on the Undead

The policy of impoverishment, the encouragement of violence and discrimination exponentially increase the feeling of insecurity among residents of large urban centers. In this book, the authors point to a possible hibernation of critical thinking of citizens, making existence less painful in the current historical context, but, at the same time, automating life itself. You live in half like undead. From a point of view, sometimes political, sometimes psychoanalytic, sometimes artistic, but always contextualizing the symbolism of soulless bodies, the collected texts break down the concept of decay to show what zombie behavior is in human (or inhuman) terms.

Fernanda notes that building social connections is an integral part of human life, creating a community where the subject can feel safe, discovering and developing their skills. “The uncertainty of these conditions, the constant threat of violence and the need of the capitalist market for increasingly unattainable results can greatly damage the inclusion of citizens in their society. An example of this marginalization would be human clusters, which were groups with their own rules and which are characterized by their remoteness from public life, here we can use as examples groups of drug addicts or luxurious gated communities where more economically privileged people create a fiction of an ideal world, shutting themselves off from of his surroundings.”

faces having sex

Recently, the discussion on gender issues has been increasingly present in political issues. And psychoanalysis cannot escape this controversy. This book, with articles from experts from all over the world, discusses gender identities and their handling throughout the history of psychoanalysis (from Freud’s Dora to caring for sex reassignment candidates), giving way to understanding human sexuality. in its various manifestations, refusing the idea of ​​heteronormativity. Through these debates, psychoanalysis itself encourages and opens up space in its community for this population to find a place for unbiased listening.

The psychoanalyst also adds that sexuality is an integral part of human life, and to understand its various manifestations is to respect each subject in terms of its uniqueness.

Analytic act and life-affirmation

The stance of denying the existence of the COVID-19 virus and resisting the federal government’s preventive measures during the pandemic have greatly contributed to the deaths of thousands of people in the country. This harsh reality brings health management issues to the fore. “This work is a collection of texts that arose from a year-long debate among psychoanalysts about the crucial importance of positioning oneself from an ethic in which human life is always a priority. The lived moment “leads to the painful weariness of the world and to rebellion against proven fact.”

Finally, Fernanda emphasizes the need to “choose ethically in every choice, since it has consequences that can be harmful, as Brazil has experienced in the federal sphere for more than three years, and its responsibility to those with whom it shares its existence.”