This paper elaborates on clinical experience with Brazilian immigrants undergoing more or less casual or orthodox forms of psychodynamic treatment in a Berlin private practice. It follows the often hidden traces of the violence experienced by the majority of patients back in Brazil. Brazil having been the last nation in the Western world to abolish slavery, Brazils society has suffered from long periods of dictatorial rule until the late 20th century and continues to be marked by serious phenomena of structural violence. Psychoanalytic object relations theory allows conceptualisation of how these societal characteristics reflect upon individual and intrapsychic processes, which are frequently distinguished by traumatic introjects that tend to express themselves through enactment rather than words, as illustrated in brief case reports. The eroticised nature of violence in Brazil leads to accordant transference patterns requiring interpretation and symbolisation efforts. However, the typically Brazilian capacity to tolerate both socially and mentally quite low integrated configurations can also be seen as a cultural resource, allowing significant clinical improvements in spite of formally incomplete therapeutic processes.

psychoanalysis Society Brazilian immigrants violence Psychic trauma

violence object relation slavery Germany immigrant Brazilian Brazil Review private practice human transference