The ethnopsychoanalysis of devereux in the movie Jimmy P.: An introduction to the transcultural clinic

Abstract

Georges Devereux (1908-1985) is known for being, together with Géza Rohéim (1891-1953), one of the creators of ethnopsychoanalysis, a subject that articulates the knowledge of Psychoanalysis and Anthropology. His first great work was Psychoterapie d'un indien des plaines, a book published in 1951 and that narrates the analysis of a Blackfoot American Indian, ex-combatant of the Second War. The book was the basis for the elaboration of the movie Jimmy P., translated in Brazil as Terapia intensiva. The aim of this study was to present an introductory discussion to some of Devereux's ideas from clippings of the film Jimmy P., directed by Arnaud Desplechin in 2013. In addition, we also looked for the author's approaches and innovations in relation to Freud. We concluded that, in the matter of approaching as a technique and practice between Devereux and Freud, we observe in the movie that Devereux incorporates to his technique the practice of dream interpretation, free association, and makes references to Freud's theory during the treatment, as the Oedipus complex and transference. Starting from Freudian intuitions about the relation between culture and psyche, Devereux advances for the formulation of an ethnopsychoanalysis, a result of the recognition of the inseparable interweaving of individual and cultural schemes. If the propositions of Devereux promoted in France the development of a clinical practice that considers the cultural differences of populations of immigrants from different countries, more promising still appear to be the chances of a transcultural psychoanalysis flourishing in a fertile terrain in ethnic diversity such as Brazil.