LETTER FROM BRAZIL

Sharing a Letter from Brazilian Analysts

I started my psychoanalytic learning and political activism in the city of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. It was the spring of 1981, a time of turmoil and search for personal and collective freedom. I migrated from Brazil to the United States in 1990 with my husband, daughter, and all twenty-four volumes of the Brazilian edition of the works of Sigmund Freud. A decade later, I became a dual citizen. Today I live in Austin, Texas. My daily analytical work occurs in Spanish, Portuguese, and English with people spread throughout the Americas. Geopolitics matters very much in my work. It is rooted in these experiences and bearing in mind how necropolitics is occurring in Brazil that I want to share an important analytic action: a petition letter. 

This “Letter to Brazilians” was written by analysts who choose to express indignation and claim protection from the State for its citizens. It was published by SBPRJ (Brazilian Society of Psychoanalysis of Rio de Janeiro) in 2020 and republished in March 2021. I am grateful to the SBPRJ Board of Directors for this letter. (https://www.sbprj.org.br/single-post/carta-aos-brasileiros). As of June 7th 2021, the total deaths by COVID in Brazil surpass 473,495 people, an unimaginable horror. 

Denise Lemos Zaborowski, PhD.

Letter to Brazilians

We, psychoanalysts of the Brazilian Society of Psychoanalysis of Rio de Janeiro − SBPRJ, join the doctors of Rio de Janeiro and all scientific institutions in repudiation of the authorities’ negligence in the face of the terrifying situation we find ourselves in, with the daily loss of more than 1000 lives and stories, causing an unprecedented collective trauma and grief that is difficult to elaborate.

The disdain shown by this administration for its people, its health, and the scientific community can be evaluated by the thousands of deaths that we count and by the place we occupy in international statistics in the fight against the pandemic.

We are not just facing a political issue. At stake are the character and ethics of a government official who evidently does not have the minimum conditions to hold office. We need to fight the “Banality of Evil” that has taken over part of Congress, public institutions, and Brazilian society.

We are astonished at the militarization of State institutions, at the frequent speeches by the federal government and its supporters/followers based on the logic of the necropolitics that propose the rupture of the democratic order, as well as attacks and threats against institutions and social groups. They are attacks on otherness, difference, desire, and culture, concepts that are essential to humanity and psychoanalysis.

The sentence of the Minister of Health, from a Brazilian saying, “Those who can rule, and those who have senses obey,” is frightening because it reminds us of the blindness caused by the identifications clearly exposed by Freud in Psychology of the Masses and Analysis of the Self.

As psychoanalysts, we cannot remain silent, disregard, or deny that we are facing a context in which a sharp blade hovers over our heads, causing anguish worse than or equivalent to that arising from the threat of death by the pandemic, as it is insidious, silent, and a train-bearer of Thanatos, smothering Eros.

Some sectors of society minimize the consequences of the pandemic in the social, health, political, and ethical fields and we ask ourselves: at what price, what is the price of silence?

Mass vaccination, so far, is the best tool to curb deaths and combat COVID-19 effectively.

Our motion is against the illusion of early treatment. Pro-vaccine now, mask-wearing, social distancing, assistance to vulnerable populations, for the defense of democracy and the federal constitution.

 

Rio de Janeiro, March 2, 2021

SBPRJ Board of Directors, 2021-2022 Biennium

Signatories:

1. Coletivo Psicanalistas Unidos pela Democracia – PUD

2. Espaço Brasileiro de Estudos Psicanalíticos – EBEP/Rio

3. Laço Analítico/Escola de Psicanálise

4. Sociedade de Psicanálise da Cidade do Rio de Janeiro – SPCRJ

5. Formação Freudiana

6. Instituto Cultural Freud

7. Grupo Brasileiro de Pesquisas Sandor Ferenczi – GBPSF

8. Sociedade Portuguesa de Psicanálise – SPP

9. Escola de Psicanálise dos Fóruns do Campo Lacaniano – Brasil – EPFCL – BRASIL

10. Intersecção Psicanalítica do Brasil (IPB)

11. Associação Brasileira de Estudos e Pesquisa da Infância – SOBEPI

12. Sociedade Psicanalítica de Portugal – SPP

13. Corpo Freudiano – Escola de Psicanálise

14. Círculo Psicanalítico do Rio de Janeiro – CPRJ

15. Grupo Vincular de São Paulo

16. Sociedade de Psicanálise da Barra – SPB

17. Círculo Brasileiro de Psicanálise:

    • Círculo Psicanalítico de Minas Gerais

    • Círculo Psicanalítico da Bahia

    • Círculo Psicanalítico de Sergipe

    • Círculo Psicanalítico do Rio Grande do Sul

    • Círculo Psicanalítico do Pará e Círculo Brasileiro de Psicanálise – Seção Rio de Janeiro
      

18. Associação Brasileira de Psicanálise de Casal e Família – ABPCF

19. Espaço Brasileiro de Estudos Psicanalíticos de Juiz de Fora – EBEPJF

20. Espaço Brasileiro de Estudos Psicanalíticos de Porto Alegre – EBPPOA

21. Grupo de Investigación e Intervención Psicoanalítica México – GRITA

22. UMBRAL, Red de Asistencia “psy”(Cataluña, España)

23. Associação Psicanalítica de Porto Alegre – APPOA

24. Psicanalistas pela Democracia – PPD

25. Associação Psicanalítica de Nova Friburgo

26. Neurofocus Psicoterapias e Centro Reich do Rio de Janeiro

27. Sociedade de Psicanálise Iracy Doyle – SPID

28. Escola Letra Freudiana

29. Associação Brasileira de Psicanálise de Casal e Família