O reconhecimento e sucesso crescente de suas
idéias não foram, apenas, motivos de regozijo para Freud. Ele pressentia
os abusos que poderiam ser cometidos em nome da Psicanálise assim
que ela se difundisse largamente. Com o intuito de prevenir o uso
indevido, os pioneiros decidiram fundar, em 1910, um organismo que
coordenasse o movimento psicanalítico mundial. Seu objetivo seria
estabelecer os preceitos éticos e de rigor científico para a prática
da Psicanálise, bem como zelar pela manutenção de padrões básicos
para a formação de analistas. Sendo assim, a
Associação
Psicanalítica Internacional - IPA - surgiu com a função primordial
de garantir a qualificação de seus membros. Para tanto, a
IPA
coordena, atualmente, 66 sociedades componentes e 5 Grupos de Estudos,
distribuídos por 33 países. Seu quadro associativo conta, até agora,
com mais de 11.000 membros. Além disso, por tratar-se de uma agremiação
científica, estimula o avanço e a difusão do conhecimento psicanalítico.
O intercâmbio entre seus membros é mantido sistematicamente através
da circulação de um Boletim e, a cada dois anos, pela realização
de um Congresso Internacional de Psicanálise e uma Conferência de
Analistas Didatas.
O atual presidente da IPA é o psicanalista brasileiro
Dr
Cláudio Laks Eizirik.
IPA em Evento nas Nações Unidas
O Presidente da IPA e psicanalista didata da SPPA,
Dr.
Cláudio Eizirik discursou no evento “Approaches
to Prevention of Intergenerational Transmission of Hate, War and
Violence, nas Nações Unidas. No texto abaixo, o discurso
proferido pelo Dr. Cláudio.
Approaches to prevention of intergenerational transmission of war,
hatred and violence - a psychoanalytic perspective
Cláudio Laks Eizirik
2006 is the 150th anniversary of Freud’s birth. It
is thus a privilege and an honor in this auspicious year to address
you today, on behalf of the International Psychoanalytical Association.
I would like to present some psychoanalytic views on one of the
most challenging issues that currently confronts us all. I would
also like to pay tribute to the United Nations for its brave efforts
to face these complex issues and other similar challenges- in both
war and in peace.
Among Freud´s many contributions to the understanding of the
human mind and behavior, I would like particularly to stress his
insights on the continuous internal conflict between love and aggression
and the ways this tension produces powerful unconscious mental mechanisms
that can lead to different expressions of hatred, violence and war.
This internal struggle is significantly influenced by the way early
upbringing contributes to fostering aggression or, alternatively,
to developing and enhancing the capacity for love and consideration
for others.
This means that a lifelong process of mental growth begins with
the quality of the mother-child relationship, together with the
presence of a father figure (or some equivalent), essential in supporting
in the development of the reality principle. The family and the
community then holds, stimulates and assists in the capacity for
the individual to think independently and to transform primitive
feelings into the expression of civilized relations with others.
This process of development of subjectivity needs, ideally, optimum
or at least adequate internal and external conditions. When democratic
and open social structures are lacking, significant damage may occur.
Analytic treatment of victims of the holocaust, dictatorships, situations
of abuse or different expressions of violence demonstrates how these
traumatic events are psychically integrated and represented. Often
there is unresolved mourning and the inability to symbolize. These
deficits in mental processes can be and often are passed on across
the generations, only to reemerge in subsequent later generations.
An important distinction has been demonstrated between intergenerational
and transgenerational psychic transmission. Intergenerational transmission
refers to the conscious transmission of mental content and processes
such as identification and fantasies, which are organized into family
history and inherited by the next generation, resulting in a structuring
effect on the mental apparatus. Transgenerational transmission occurs
unconsciously and is transmitted to future generations. It involves
mental contents which are dissociated and not symbolized through
words or stories. Thus primitive and unintegrated affects resulting
from trauma, pain and loss are not worked through and are not mastered.
This kind of transmission remains encapsulated and acts as a violent
intrusion into the individual’s sense of self as well as being
transmitted to future generations.
When lies and misdemeanors are perceived as sanctioned social values
within a culture, for instance the different forms of prejudice
manifested through racism, a lack of respect for minorities, women,
the elderly and immigrants, this can produce transgenerational transmission.
When it is the father figure who provides the lie, it becomes impossible
to develop the mental apparatus and the notion of subjectivity and
to establish appropriate social values.
Among other features, psychoanalysis is a discipline whose insights
can provide an in-depth and critical view of a culture and its mental
health.
The current situation in the world, with areas dominated by grinding
poverty, ethnic wars, religious fundamentalism, urban violence and
other similar situations, produces trauma and violence which can
only contribute to the transmission of more hatred and violence
to future generations.
So what do we do to prevent this negative transmission of hatred?
In my view, prevention requires urgent action, particularly action
directed towards children and their families, where this hateful
and violent transmission manifests itself. If left unattended it
might eventually produce the terrorist perpetrators of tomorrow.
Improving basic conditions of life, health, and education through
massive investment in the poor areas of the world is a concrete
and essential way of preventing the development of hatred, war and
violence.
It is similarly important to address and deal with the massive and
destructive trade in arms, and to regulate and contain the worst
excesses of market economies in order to encourage mutually respectful
and collaborative cultures, which can develop harmoniously and,
above all, peacefully towards one another.
Informed by analytic knowledge, we know that establishing ways of
reducing social division and the projection of hatred are also important
mechanisms for social cohesion. This requires finding ways to implement
the difficult task of listening to others, be it the stranger, or
even the enemy. It was Freud who discussed how this “stranger”
is in fact someone who represents a hidden and unwanted part of
ourselves. A good example of listening to the other was recently
established at the Baremboim-Said Foundation, where, through music,
Israeli and Palestinian children learn how to listen to each other
and to play together.
From a psychoanalytic perspective, we understand the need to produce
and play new sounds, the sounds that can only be heard when collaborative
efforts put together different people with differing values and
prejudices in order to build tolerance and new ways of working together.
As an international association whose main aims are the development
of a scientific discipline and the maintenance of high standards
of analytic training, the IPA in recent years had also established
new committees to consider and to develop our thinking, through
conferences and publications, on issues such as terror and terrorism,
prejudice, anti Semitism, psychic effects of social exclusion, and
the development of children and adolescents. Our United Nations
Committee is also actively involved on consideration of social issues
through our collaboration with you in New York. Our members are
not only engaged in analytic work aiming to reduce the psychic pain
of our patients. Many are also active more broadly in the community
in areas of education, psychiatry, psychology, and programs of prevention
and mental health.
The psychoanalytic contribution to the prevention of hatred, war
and violence thus occurs in two ways. First by treating patients
whose psychic transformation will also produce positive changes
in their subsequent generations and, and second by taking part in
joint activities or initiatives where we can show how much open
listening can correct distorted perceptions and increase the ability
to tolerate and identify with the others.
This is naturally not an easy task. It is also an intergenerational
one. We share Freud’s conviction that, despite many challenges,
the voice of reason is soft, but never gives up the attempt to be
heard. We must all join together both to listen and be heard in
this uncertain and unpredictable world.
