The discourse of "neutrality": attitudes of psychoanalysts during the military dictatorship

This article examines the position of psychanalytical societies and Brazilian psychoanalysts affiliated to the International Psychoanalytical Association during the military dictatorship in the 1970s. It shows that the period was a time of extended ideas, featuring a large investment in private clinics and a resulting "marginalization" of the social universe doctrine. Through the writings of certain important members of the movement, it seeks to show how, based on the notions of "neutrality", of the primacy of internal reality to the detriment of external reality, and of investment in the "here and now" of the setting, these psychoanalysts chose to allow psychoanalysis to be divorced from politics. It concludes with arguments in support of the importance of the involvement of such professionals in political society.