Many things are known about Sigmund Freud.
There is the Freud of books. The one who created the extraordinary psychoanalytic method. The thinker of dreams, the unconscious, sexuality or the ego. The one who escaped from Vienna under the Nazi threat. The heavy cigar smoker.
Little is known, however, about its international ties, in particular, with regions so far from its own world… such as Latin America.
But the truth is that one of the most important intellectuals of the 20th century had a particular connection with this corner of the planet, largely ignored by Europe at that time.
A new exhibition housed in the Freud House Museum, located in northeast London, where the father of psychoanalysis died in September 1939, speaks of that connection.
Through private letters, photographs, sculptures and books, the exhibition explores Freud’s tremendous impact on Latin America, to the point that today the region is recognized as an important center for psychoanalysis.
Also, it reveals the fascination of this Austrian doctor and researcher for the continent, establishing close relationships with Peruvian, Chilean and Brazilian scientists, among others.
“About Coca”
But how did Freud’s link with the Latin American continent begin?
According to researchers, the answer has to do with the use of coca.
As is known, in the decade of 1880 the researcher became interested in this drug – which was not illegal at the time – and discovered that his digestion and mood improved after drinking water laced with dissolved cocaine.
His discoveries in this regard were recorded in an 1884 article called “Über Coca” (in Spanish, “On Coca”), where for the first time Latin America is mentioned in one of his writings when exploring the traditional use of the coca plant in Peru and Bolivia.
“Freud’s relationship with Latin America begins with his research on the use of coca as ritual medicine on the continent; “It was his first intellectual contact,” he explains to BBC Mundo. Mariano Ben Plotkinexpert in the history of psychoanalysis and author of the book “Dear Doctor Freud: a cultural history of psychoanalysis in Latin America.”
The historian adds that for this it was useful his command of Spanisha language that he learned as a child, self-taught, to be able to read “Don Quixote” by Miguel de Cervantes in its original language.
“Freud did very unique work on the anesthetic use of coca that is very controversial today,” adds Plotkin.
Years after these studies, Freud stopped defending the stimulant and analgesic benefits of coca, while news came to light about its addictive level and deaths from overdose.
Latin American “Friends”
But he did not forget Latin America.
From Vienna, Freud continued to strengthen ties with important doctors, psychiatrists and intellectuals on the continent.
Perhaps the most relevant was Honorio Delgadoa Peruvian psychiatrist with whom he formed a close relationship in the 1920s (and whom Freud described as his “first foreign friend”).
“Delgado came from Arequipa, from the Peruvian upper class. “He led discoveries and trials that were very relevant for the time, becoming one of the most important psychiatrists on the continent,” he explains to BBC Mundo. Mariano Ruperthuzpsychoanalyst and academic at the Andrés Bello University of Chile.
Freud and Delgado exchanged letters, press articles and gifts for years. The Peruvian psychiatrist, together with his German wife, even visited Freud in Vienna several times.
And although Delgado would later reject psychoanalysis, between 1920 and 1930 he was very active in expanding and propagating Freud’s ideas throughout Latin America.
So much so, that he wrote the first biography in Spanish of the Austrian doctor from Peru.
Sigmund Freud also established relationships with distinguished Brazilian doctors, such as Durval Marcondes, who spoke German and translated some of Freud’s research into Portuguese. Marcondes was one of the founding members of the Brazilian Psychoanalytic Society.
the scientist Gastão Pereira da Silva He also corresponded with Freud and helped spread psychoanalysis in Brazil. He even directed a radio program in Rio de Janeiro on the analysis of dreams.
Other names – like the Argentinian ones Jorge Thenon and Gregorio Bermann or the Chilean Fernando de Allende Navarro– are also on the list of those who maintained some type of relationship with the father of psychoanalysis. Bermann went to visit him in Vienna, as did Honorio Delgado.
Furthermore, in the exhibition in his London home there is a letter from Freud addressed to Juan MarinChilean poet, novelist and diplomat, and Nobel Prize winner in Literature, Pablo Nerudaafter they offered him and his family asylum in Santiago as a result of Nazi persecution.
Although Freud never accepted such an invitation, for researchers this exchange of letters reflects, once again, Freud’s close connection with the continent.
“Asymmetrical” relationship
Even so, Mariano Ben Plotkin explains that most of these ties between Freud and Latin American intellectuals were “quite asymmetrical” and “unequal.”
“Freud cared little what they said about psychoanalysis. This can be seen in the correspondences they maintained, where there are no theoretical discussions but, rather, gratitude and a legitimate interest in that world,” he points out.
“Freud accepted deviations from psychoanalysis in Latin America that would have been completely unacceptable in Europe. Because for Freud, this region was a land of mission, proof that psychoanalysis had reached distant and exotic lands,” adds the historian.
The above was tremendously important for the Austrian doctor, the researchers say.
Proof of this was his strange interest in taking with him 34 of his 62 Latin American books -many of which have a dedication- when he had to escape from Vienna to London.
Due to his condition as a Jew (although not practicing) and founder of the psychoanalytic school in Austria, Freud was considered an enemy of Nazi Germany. His studies were publicly burned and he and his family were victims of intense persecution.
According to Mariano Ben Plotkin, of the 34 Latin American books that arrived in London, “Freud had not read any because they were all uncut.”
“Also, half of them are written in Portuguese and he didn’t read Portuguese. Then one wonders: Why did he go to the trouble of carrying with him books that he did not read and would not read in his life? “They were to show posterity that psychoanalysis had reached exotic countries.”says.
Antiquities of Mexico and Peru
But within its collection, there are not only books that came from Latin America.
The psychoanalyst also kept antiquities from Central and South America.
Although it is not known when or how he acquired these objects, it is believed that they could be gifts or purchases from European antique dealers.
On display in his London home is a small terracotta statue of a kneeling man that comes from Nayarit, in western Mexico.
Also, there is a Moche vase with a necklace from Peru which researchers believe could have been given by Honorio Delgado.
For Jamie Ruers, curator of the exhibition “Freud and Latin America,” this was another of the things that fascinated Freud about the continent.
“If we look at Freud’s antiquities, he was always fascinated by ancient civilizations.. Most of the objects in his collection are from ancient Greece, Rome, Egypt… I think the idea of learning about incredible ancient cultures and civilizations has always fascinated him,” he tells BBC Mundo.
“And Freud saw Latin America as an exotic place, without a doubt,” he adds.
Freud’s influence in the region
All of the above perhaps explains why Freud’s ideas were so well received in Latin America, to the point that today cities like Buenos Aires are home to the largest number of psychoanalysts worldwide.
“When you think about psychoanalysis, places like Vienna, Paris, London or New York come to mind. But this new research (from the exhibition in London) challenges that because there is another place in the world where psychoanalysis was really adopted and taken into its own hands: Latin America,” says Jamie Ruers.
This is reflected not only through the large number of doctors on the continent who followed in Freud’s footsteps – and disseminated his studies – but also in how it permeated Latin American popular culture.
For example, in Buenos Aires in 1930, a special section was created in the women’s magazine Idyll -call “psychoanalysis will help you”– who analyzed the dreams of her readers and illustrated them.
Gino Germani, an Italian psychologist, was behind the project. Before his death, Mariano Ben Plotkin spoke with him.
“I asked him why he thought of doing that section on psychoanalysis. And he answered me: ‘because I was selling’. Nothing more than that,” says Plotkin.
The same thing happened with a collection made by the Peruvian poet and writer Alberto Hidalgo through which he disseminated Freud’s work.
“The collection was enormously popular, touching on topics such as female hysteria or the origin of sex. It was published first in Argentina and then in other Latin American countries, it was even translated into Portuguese,” says Plotkin.
For the historian, psychoanalysis attracted Latin Americans so much because it allowed them to see “that there was the possibility of understanding the world from another point of view.”
That “other point of view” undoubtedly continues to impact many Latin Americans to this day.
84 years after his death, Freud is present in a region that he never visited in person, but that is plagued by traumas and dreams like that method that he created, to listen to the former and interpret the latter.
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