For a “modern” and “regenerated” national identity: psychoanalytic theory in the Brazilian League of Mental Hygiene (1926)

Abstract

The article analyzes how psychoanalytic theory was appropriated by psychiatrists in the first decades of the 20th century, inserted in a broad context of discussion of projects for the Brazilian nation. In a second moment, we took the year 1926 as an important milestone because it was when the Psychoanalysis Clinic was created, as well as study sections on such knowledge within the Liga Brasileira de Higiene Mental, providing an institutionalized place for discussion and application of such theory. We conclude with a brief discussion on the ways that such theory would take in further years.