Freud exhibition delves into a dramatic legacy in Latin America
The famously Freudian Dr Frasier Crane may have brought psychoanalysis over the airwaves to the masses in the seminal 1990s comedy in which he constantly spars with his Jungian brother, Niles. But half a century before him, a real-life Brazilian Frasier was doing much the same.
Sigmund Freud’s influence in Latin America, a region the founder of psychoanalysis never visited, was so profound it spawned a 1940s hit radio show in Brazil, The World of Dreams, presented by the Freud devotee and psychiatrist Gastão Pereira da Silva.
Broadcasting on Rádio Nacional, Brazil’s equivalent to the BBC, and with possible audience figures Frasier’s show on the Seattle-based KACL would kill for, Pereira da Silva took listeners’ dreams, had actors voice them, then psychoanalysed them on air.
It is one of many examples of Latin America’s early and enduring adoption of psychoanalysis, and Freudianism in particular, highlighted in an exhibition opening at the Freud Museum London in his former and final home in
Hampstead.
Through letters, photography, surrealist art, books from Freud’s own library, comics, magazines and newspapers, the exhibition shows Freud’s influence on Central and South America,
which became a leading region globally for psychoanalysis, with Buenos Aires reportedly home to the highest number of psychoanalysts per capita in the world.
Though Freudian psychoanalysis is often considered a European practice – begun at his home in Vienna – its impact in Latin America has arguably been the most dramatic, taking root in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Mexico and Peru.
Jamie Ruers, the curator of Freud and Latin America, said: “Pereira da Silva was very close to Freudianism. He was a self-proclaimed psychoanalyst, and in a lot of ways Frasier Crane was as well. Both of them were breaking down stigmas about therapy by bringing it to the masses. There weren’t many people doing this sort of thing on the radio, popularising it in the way that he was.
“And that really is the message of the exhibition; the idea that psychoanalysis, particularly Freudian psychoanalysis, was being delivered to such a broad audience from as early as the 1930s and 40s in Latin America.” An audio recording of one of the shows is part of the exhibition.
Psychoanalysis, particularly dream analysis, became woven into Latin American cultures. The 1930s Buenos Aires newspaper Jornado invited readers to submit their dreams for analysis by “Freudiano”; an Argentinian women’s magazine, Idilio – comparable
to today’s Cosmopolitan – analysed readers’ dreams illustrated with surrealist artworks by the photographer Grete Stern.
“Women sent in their dreams and they would be analysed, alongside these beautiful, stunning, photomontage, surrealist artworks,” said Ruers. Examples of this artwork, alongside works by the Brazilian poet and woodcut artist Jose Borges, and the Mexican multimedia artist Santiago Borja, form part of the exhibition.
Other key people in the show include the black Brazilian doctor Juliano Moreira, a son of enslaved people, who encountered Freud’s name at a 1913 medical congress in London and who brought psychoanalysis into the medical domain in Brazil, where centres still bear his name.
Freud’s boyhood fascination for the Spanish language – he never mastered Portuguese – was inspired by his wish to read Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes in its original language. Self-taught, as a teenager Freud exchanged letters in Spanish with his friend Eduard Silberstein, each adopting a Spanish pen-name inspired by Cervantes’ novella, The Dialogue of the
Dogs. Freud became Cipión and Silberstein was Berganza.
In the 1920s, Freud formed a close relationship with the Peruvian psychiatrist Honorio Delgado, whom he described as his “first foreign friend”. They exchanged letters, books and presents over the ensuing decades.
When Freud moved to London in 1938 as a refugee, he brought 34 of his 62 Latin American books, many of which had been inscribed with dedications by their authors.
Ruers said: “This exhibition will tell fascinating stories about Sigmund Freud that most people won’t know.”
Freud and Latin America at the Freud Museum,London NW3 5SX, from 17 January to 14 July 2024. Tickets at www.freud.org.uk
shorter in Gaza. Entner said that for an eSIM’s activation to work, it needs to be camouflaged as being from an American provider or other Israeli allies, he said. In that case, the Israeli government may not cut it off.
After the success of the two test trials, El Helbawi began tweeting. She asked her followers to purchase eSIMs through their phone providers. Once they buy an eSIM, they send her the QR code. Then El Helbawi activates the eSIM and sends the code to a Gaza resident. When she connects one Palestinian’s phone, she asks that person for the phone information of the other Palestinians next to him. One by one, the connection spreads.
In Cairo, El Helbawi is not working alone. She has a group of 11 people who work daily, whenever they can, to connect Palestinian phones. She works as a writer, and she’s constantly tweeting too. She tweets instructions, asking people to send her the QR codes. She tweets about what she hears on the voice notes of those she is trying to help, which is often heavy bombing in the background.
At a very young age, El Helbawi said, she witnessed the horrors of conflict in the Middle East. She recalled seeing the image of Muhammed Al Durrah, 12, lying next to his father, dead, on 30 September 2000, during the second intifada. El Helbawi was eight. “I was helpless,” she said. “I believe Palestinians deserve to live in peace.”
El Helbawi’s message and stories like El-Madhoun’s are resonating in unexpected corners of the world. In Urmila, Italy, Giulia D Lorenzo, an artist, didn’t have the money to buy an eSIM. Instead, she’s gifted three drawings of favorite video game characters to those who did. A former English instructor, Rehanah Bhathal, 65, had heard about El Helbawi’s movement through another person’s tweet. Bhathal, who lives in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, decided to take action. She purchased an eSIM for a Palestinian for about $17.
“It’s another way of participating and feeling that you did something. It’s so personal and so intimate,” Bhathal said. She could monitor the person through their phone account once it was activated and know they were OK. But the activation didn’t last long – only about a day. She worried about what had happened to the stranger.
but more over whipping up intense fears over immigration. Here again Starmer promises to be a lucky general; today’s alarming numbers are forecast to tumble – he just needs better to sell his policies so he can proclaim the victory that eludes Rishi Sunak.
What is lacking is an inspiring political framing. It is forgotten now, but Tony Blair in the run-up to the 1997 election talked about the enduring value of the ethic of socialism, how a third way would combine that ethic with individual responsibility and so honour the socialist tradition in a new guise. The proposition is even enthroned in Labour’s new clause IV. In office he tacked too far right, but that framing had a decade-long momentum. Starmer might remind his party and country his framing is the same, only he aims to make it live. It will help him both win and avoid the plague of doubts that now so threaten Biden. Time to venture beyond the stockade of grimness.
• Will Hutton is an Observer columnist