Psychoanalysts on the analytic couch

who's afraid of the racialized social marker?

Abstract

This paper aims to reflect on the neutral position often assumed by some psychoanalysts regarding social markers of difference and issues understood as “non-psychoanalytic.” Considering the erasure of these themes in clinical discussions and in the stance of some practitioners of the psychoanalytic craft, the discussion will be supported by authors such as Pedro Ambra, Thamy Ayouch, Thaís Klein, Eduardo Leal Cunha, Mariana Pombo, among others, as well as Nêgo Bispo, Frantz Fanon, and Luiz Rufino, to unsettle the psychoanalyst’s role in the face of the effects that hegemonic discourses may produce on analysands. Assuming the character of an engaged psychoanalysis, capable of rethinking itself and, therefore, transformative, the present paper will propose possibilities for psychoanalytic listening not to be indifferent to the world in which we live, but rather to position itself as an emancipatory and revolutionary tool.