Female participation in psychoanalysis dissemination from 1930 to 1950 in Brazil

Abstract

Based on the assumption that women played a major role during the first years of psychoanalysis dissemination in Brazil both in introducing and expanding Freudian ideas in the country, this study outlines women’s participation in the Brazilian psychoanalytic movement. To give visibility to this pioneering spirit, we divided the text in three moments. First, we contextualize women’s participation in Brazilian society during the first half of the 20th century and the first emancipatory movements. We then discuss how psychoanalysis, understood as an innovative and disruptive movement, provided a fertile space of interlocution for exploring the expansion of women’s participation in the public and social sphere. Finally, we articulate these hypotheses by means of the biographical outline of two outstanding pioneers of psychoanalysis in Brazil: Virgínia Bicudo and Marialzira Perestrello.