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THE RETURN OF THE REPRESSED: THE ROLE OF

SEXUALITY IN THE RECEPTION OF PSYCHOANALYSIS IN
CHILEAN MEDICAL CIRCLES (1910s1940s)

Mariano Ruperthuz Honorato, Santiago de Chile, Chile

Associating psychoanalysis with sexuality is a commonplace. The process
of the reception of psychoanalysis in Latin America, however, shows that,
historically, the place of sexuality in Freuds theory has been looked at in
different and sometimes contradictory ways (Plotkin, 2009).
The aim of this article is to explore the evolving place of the sexual factor
in the reception of psychoanalysis in Chile from its early moments to its
institutionalization in 1949. The discussion will be guided by the following
questions: What did the local actors understand by psychoanalysis and
what was their specific contribution? What sources fed the discussions on
the subject? What part of psychoanalysis was attractive to the local actors,
and how did they combine this with the intellectual traditions that
dominated the national scene at the time? And, in what way did
psychoanalysis form part of the national debate on sexuality?

How Psychoanalysis Was Presented in Chile: The French Influence

on the Local Medical Scene
A doctor from Chile (probably a German) appeared at the International
Congress in Buenos Aires, in 1910, and spoke on behalf of the existence of

MARIANO RUPERTHUZ HONORATO graduated in Psychology from the

University of Santiago de Chile, and currently serves as Professor at the School of
Psychology of the same university. At present, he is working on his doctoral dissertation
in Psychology entitled The reception of psychoanalysis in Chile (19101949) under the
supervision of Dr Roberto Aceituno (Universidad de Chile) and Dr Mariano Ben
Plotkin (IDES, Buenos Aires). Address for correspondence: Doctoral Program in
Psychology, University of Chile, Av. Ignacio Carrera Pinto 1045, Santiago de Chile,
Chile. [mruperthuz@ug.uchile.cl]
Psychoanalysis and History 14(2), 2012: 285296
DOI: 10.3366/pah.2012.0113
# Edinburgh University Press
www.eupjournals.com/pah

286

PSYCHOANALYSIS AND HISTORY (2012) 14(2)

infantile sexuality and praised the results of psychoanalytic therapy in

obsessions (Freud, 1914, p. 22). Freuds reference complemented his
commentary in the Zentralblatt fur Psychoanalyse (Freud, 1911). This
demonstrates the early reception that psychoanalysis had in Chile thanks to
the work of Dr German Greve Schlegel (Greve, 1910) However, Greves
first encounter with Freud had taken place 16 years earlier, in 1894, at the
Congress of German naturalists and doctors in Vienna.1
In the 1890s, Greve had been sent to Europe, commissioned by the
Chilean government, to learn about, and provide information on, advances
in electrotherapy and in the building of mental asylums. His five-year stay
(189398) allowed him to visit different clinics and universities in
Germany, Austria and France; he is said to have worked in the
laboratory of the physiologist, Rudolf Virchow.2 After entering into
contact with Freud, Greve became an enthusiastic diffuser of
psychoanalysis. However, his interest in Freuds ideas would not last.
Several authors have written about Greve and the reasons why he later
abandoned psychoanalysis (Olagaray, 1990), turning to private psychiatric
practice, joining the Asociacion de Beneficiencia Publica as director of its
official journal, and specializing in hospital administration. Here, I would
follow up on the ideas of Araya and Leyton (2009), who mention among
those reasons the organic emphasis of the national neuro-psychiatric scene,
clearly influenced by the thinking of Jean-Martin Charcot and his
anatomicclinical method. The Academic Department for Neurology and
Nervous and Mental Diseases was set up at the University of Chile (the
only public establishment that taught these courses) in 1889, under the
professorship of the French-Chilean doctor Carlos Sazie, who had studied
with Charcot at La Salpetrie`re. Sazie held the position until 1891 the
year that civil war started in Chile against President Balmacedas
government, of which he was a supporter. He was replaced by Augusto
Orrego Luco, of the same organicist inspiration. Orrego Luco had sent his
study on traumatic hysteria of 1882 to Charcot. The piece was published in
Iconographie de la Salpetrie`re (Escobar, 2002). His successors, Joaquin
Luco, Oscar Fontecilla and Arturo Vivado, continued along the same lines

1. I had the opportunity to collaborate with Michael Molnar on a project on the

photographic research of this congress [Photograph N! 1626] at the image bank of the
Freud Museum in London. Among the participants, both Sigmund Freud and German
Greve can be identified. I would like to thank the family of German Greve Schlegel for
its generosity in making this photo available for this investigation, in which many of the
participants can be identified. For more information, see Molnar (2011) and Ruperthuz
(2008).
2. This information can be found in the unpublished Biografa del Dr. Don German
Greve Schegel written in 1969 by his son German Greve Silva (1969). This material was
also shown to me by the Greve family.

MARIANO RUPERTHUZ HONORATO

287

of thought until the late 1940s. This era was marked by the search for
organic lesions that would define and cause mental disorders. This somatic
style would also give rise to alternative treatments including cardiazol
therapy, insulin therapy and electro-convulsive therapy or electroshock.3
This context was not particularly hospitable to psychoanalysis and might
have forced Greve to reconsider his interest in it if he wanted to have a
career in Chile (Araya & Leyton, 2009).
Returning to Greve (1895), the findings of his European trip were
published in Revista Medica between 1894 and 1895. Greve pointed out
that Charcot used electrical discharges to stimulate those areas of the
nervous system where the invisible lesions of hysterical patients were
located. Greve went on to recommend that, due to the widespread use of
these state-of-the-art treatments in Europe, they should be studied and
applied thoroughly in Chile to increase their prominence in the local
medical community.4
The influence of an anatomo-pathological vision and the strong presence
lisabeth Roudinesco (1982) has shown,
of the French School that, as E
posed considerable resistance to the entrance of psychoanalysis in France,
could explain the lack of resonance in Chilean medical circles of the
Freudian ideas brought from Europe by Greve. In Chilean psychiatry, two
conflicting views would develop as to whether psychoanalysis was part of
neuropsychiatry (the somatic position) or if it was a literary discipline (the
psychogenic position) (Allende Navarro, 1957; Horwitz, 1938).
Another physician who was influential in the early dissemination of
Freuds ideas in Chile was Doctor Fernando Allende Navarro. Born in
Concepcion, he travelled to Europe at the beginning of the century and
studied medicine at Lausanne University, from where he graduated as a
doctor in 1920. He then worked as a resident in the hospitals of La Biloque,
in Gante. On his return to Switzerland he worked in Constantin Von
Monakows laboratory at the University of Switzerland and at the Institute
of Brain Anatomy. He was in charge of the pysychotherapy division of the
Institute of Physiotherapy and worked as a neurologist at the Polyclinic of
Nervous Diseases. Allende Navarro was in close contact with Eugene
Minkowsky, Raoul Mourge and Hermann Rorschach (Allende Navarro,
1934).5 As a student of Bleuler, Allende Navarro became interested in

3. The idea of somatic style is borrowed from Hale (1971, ch. 3).
4. Greve states that a doctor Eulenurg, from Berlin, allowed him to observe
electroshock therapy sessions in his clinic where he also commented on the existence
of a suggestive component in the improvement of patients after applying static current:
To me this sounds just a bit like the famous phrase: Your money or your life!
5. In an article describing his work on the Rorschach test with deaf-mutes, Allende talks
about the close friendship he established with Herman Rorschach on his visit to

288

PSYCHOANALYSIS AND HISTORY (2012) 14(2)

psychoanalysis and decided to train as a psychoanalyst. He carried out his

training analysis with Emil Oberholzer, and at the end of this process
joined the Swiss Society of Psychoanalysis. Allende Navarro continued
cultivating his European contacts after his return to Chile in 1925, and
when the Paris Psychoanalytic Society was founded one year later, he was
admitted as a foreign associate member.6 Some say that he was the first
psychoanalyst under IPA standards in Latin America (Etchegoyen &
Zysman, 2005).
Once back in Chile, Allende Navarro revalidated his medical degree at
the Universidad de Chile with his thesis. El valor del psicoanalisis en la
Policlnica: contribucion a la psicologa clnica (Allende Navarro, 1925).7
In the opening pages he surveyed the reception of psychoanalytical ideas in
Chile and other Latin American countries. He pointed out the admiration
of the local medical scene for the French model and the fact that, in his
own words, a cordon sanitaire had been placed around Freuds teachings.
For Allende Navarro, Most Latin countries that admire French science
have obediently followed its footsteps (Allende Navarro, 1925, p. 43).
Speaking about the region, the author does recognize some exceptions
such as Honorio Delgado in Peru,8 with whom he struck up a close
friendship, Gonzalo Enrique Lafora in Spain, and Juan Ramon Beltran in
Argentina. Finally, Allende Navarro claims that the critics of
psychoanalysis focus precisely on the role of sexuality in the theory. He
says: For most members of the medical profession and the uninitiated,
except for those that have ventured into psychoanalytical doctrine,
Freudism is a synonym of sexuality (Allende Navarro, 1925, p. 27).
In Chile Freud was read via French commentators such as J. Aluminiers
(1925) Freudism: Expose et critique, or Emmanuel Regis and Angelo

Switzerland. As Allende recounts, he accompanied the Swiss scientist as a friend until

his death; see Allende Navarro (1969).
6. Admitting foreign associate members was common practice at the Societe
Psychanalytique de Paris, since foreign members paid higher fees and therefore
became an easy source of income. See Plotkin (2003, p. 45).
7. The author sent a copy to Freud on 15 February 1933 with the following dedication:
To my teacher Prof. Sigmund Freud. With fond regards, Fernando Allende Navarro
(written in French). Freud responded with a letter thanking him for the book and
encouraging him to continue combatting the enemies of analysis: [. . .] nothing is
achieved through pusillanimity and concessions. See Davies & Fichtner (2006) and
Casaula et al. (1990).
8. Honorio Delgado, who subsequently moved away from psychoanalysis to criticize it,
wrote a prologue to Allendes (1934) paper, Constantino Von Monakov and his Work, in
which he tells of his collaboration with the Chilean author at the 7th International
Congress in Berlin in 1922. At this Congress, both authors made personal contact with
Freud.

MARIANO RUPERTHUZ HONORATO

289

Hesnards (1914) La psychanalyse des nevroses et des psychoses, ses

applications medicales et extra-medicales, and the works of the local
followers of Pierre Janet, such as the writer and psychologist Benjamin
Subercaseaux, who, on returning from France where he was a student of
Janet, gave a series of conferences sponsored by the Sociedad Cientfica de
Chile on his teachers theories. There, he claimed that psychoanalysis
attracted the publics attention because of its emphasis on sexuality, but it
was really a set of ideas which were complex and dangerous because of
their diversity (Subercaseaux, 1927, pp. 89). The critics of psychoanalysis
furthermore claimed that these ideas could present a social danger because
the very concept of the unconscious apparently freed individuals, especially
criminals, from the responsibility of their acts. It was also claimed that
psychoanalysis was a body of theory with little physiological substance,
because its metapsychology was imprecise and inexact in its formulations.
According to some psychiatrists, psychoanalysis belonged much more to
the literary world than to the world of medicine.9
More sympathetic to psychoanalysis, Humberto Daz Casanueva, a
diplomat, poet and principally an educator, came, nonetheless, to a similar
conclusion when he published his work, Necesidad de preocuparnos de una
nueva ciencia, in 1927. Daz Casanueva (1927) claimed that in Chile there
was great ignorance concerning psychoanalysis and that it was presented as
a discipline which was not exclusively medical; other areas, such as
education, and the arts, specifically Surrealism which had widened its
radius of action to embrace the Freudian theory could receive its benefits
in the following decade. As an educator, he claimed that psychoanalysis
allowed teachers to reach the childs soul, making their work much easier.
He acknowledged, as a source of reference, the Swiss psychologist
and educator Pierre Bovets work La psychanalyse et leducation (Bovet,
1920).

Two Paths: Psychiatry, Social Medicine and the Return

of Sexuality
By the late 1920s, the medical reception of psychoanalysis in Chile ran in
two parallel paths: on the one hand, it was conceptualized as a psychiatric
theory while, on the other hand, it was seen as part of the socio-medical
discourse linked to mass education. At the same time, the positivist
paradigm in Latin America (Plotkin, 1996), which had promoted the idea

9. It is extremely easy and extraordinarily dangerous to accept as a genetic explanation

what is no more than simple fallacious descriptions of a more or less literary nature.
These are the observations on one of Allende Navarros works by Oscar Fontecilla, a
prominent Chilean psychiatrist (Horwitz, 1938, p. 55).

290

PSYCHOANALYSIS AND HISTORY (2012) 14(2)

that mental illnesses were related to some kind of brain alteration, was
combined in Chile (just as it was in other countries in the region) with the
influence of the degeneration theory.10 The latter, also of French
inspiration, stated that mental and physical illnesses were transmitted
from generation to generation in doses that were progressively more
destructive.
Until the 1940s, Chilean doctors were very firm in claiming that, in order
to become a real science, national psychiatry should limit itself to a somatic
approach to mental diseases. According to some prominent psychiatrists,
their discipline should be clearly physiological and experimental (Vivado
et al., 1940, p. 160). This delimitation left little space for the practice of
psychoanalysis and privileged somatic treatment. Psychoanalysis was
therefore regarded as a complementary method to those more serious
psychiatric treatments requiring physiological methods, such as insulin and
cardiazol therapy, pyretotherapy (artificially induced fevers), physio- and
electro-therapy and surgery (Matte Blanco, 1944).11
Other doctors and researchers thought that psychoanalysis was still in its
developmental stage but that, thanks to its links to endocrinology and
neurology, it embodied all necessary scientific precepts (Lipschutz, 1958).
Authorities such as Allende Navarro himself, Ignacio Matte Blanco both
founders of the Asociacion Psicoanaltica Chilena (APCH) and Manuel
Francisco Beca,12 a great promoter of psychoanalytic ideas in more
conservative environments associated to the Catholic Church, would
combine and experiment with both psychoanalytic and somatic treatments
in their respective clinics.13 The results of their experiments were published
in Revista de Psiquiatra y Disciplinas Conexas. Nevertheless, the articles
published in the journal suggest that their authors interest in
psychoanalysis was primarily theoretical, with a strong emphasis on

10. Salvador Allendes (1933) thesis, Higiene Mental y Delincuencia, is an example.

11. Matte Blanco talks about his experience at the Duxe Hospital where he applied
electroshock and sessions of psychoanalysis.
12. Beca, who was the editor for the Revista de Psiquiatra y Disciplinas Conexas, was
responsible for commenting the psychoanalytical works of the journals Reading
section. In this section he commented, for example, on the writings of Angel Garma,
Celes Carcamo, Franz Alexander, Pichon-Rivie`re, Eduardo Krapf and Honorio
Delgado, amongst others published mostly by local sources such as specialized
journals in Argentina, Peru and Uruguay.
13. In a report about the Congress Jornadas Sudamericanas de Medicina, Ciruga y
Odontologa in Montevideo where Allende Navarro represented Chile, he explained:
In a future issue we will publish our study about the pathological anatomy of
schizophrenia, as well as our indications concerning its treatment with cardiazol.
According to Allende Navarro, these experiments date back to September 1935
(Allende Navarro, 1938).

MARIANO RUPERTHUZ HONORATO

291

psycho-diagnostic tests such as the Rorschach Test and the Miokinetic

Test of Emilio Mira y Lopez which were applied to the study of criminals
with the sole purpose of understading the unconscious basis of criminal
conduct (Bucker, 1942a, 1942b).
Some of the APCH founders all of them doctors came to the
conclusion that psychiatric training should be a prerequisite to
psychoanalytical training. For this reason, the words of Matte Blanco
who, after arriving from London, where he had been certified as a
psychoanalyst by the British Psychoanalytic Society are especially
revealing when he states in his paper on electroshock that:
We are starting on an epic journey along this path towards progress. Although it
is true that our current weapons are still imperfect, they contain the seeds of
future developments that will transform our present primitive psychiatry into an
organized discipline, which is capable not only of modifying neurosis and
psychosis but also of influencing the mental development of human beings.
(Matte Blanco, 1944, p. 31)

Sexual Psychoanalysis, Preventive and Educational

On the other hand, and in parallel, until the mid-1920s social medicine
occupied a privileged position in the national scene, opening up alternative
paths for the reception and dissemination of psychoanalytic ideas. Since
the beginning of the 20th century, Chile had gone through periods of
instability and profound social transformation. These were times when
there was an attempt to incorporate, through discourse, new social and
ethnic sectors, which had recently become more visible. This resulted in a
reformulation of the idea of the bio-cultural cross-breeding of the nation.
Moreover, the high rates of morbidity and mortality existing at that time
justified these concerns and, in the words of Labarca (2008), the state
became active in the prevention of the diseases that were decimating the
Chilean population. At the same time, state officials and intellectuals were
convinced that mass education was a crucial tool to achieve these
objectives. Until then, degeneration theory had dominated the sociomedical scene, leaving scant possibilities of developing a new national
project. The improvement of the Chilean race, in biological and
psychological terms, was a programme that was not limited to speeches
but also found a voice in public policies for education, health and sport,
during the early decades (Subercaseaux, 2007, p. 32). For this reason, some
doctors, politicians and intellectuals started to criticize Lombrosos and
Ferris ideas, which had dominated vast sectors of the intellectual world,
and turned to a neo-Malthusian focus and to eugenics. Psychoanalysis
appeared on the scene as an alternative theory, strengthening the argument
for psychogenesis and the effect of the environment on the development of
personality, thereby opening up a new space for social manoeuvrability.

292

PSYCHOANALYSIS AND HISTORY (2012) 14(2)

Juan Andueza, professor of Legal Medicine at the Universidad de

Valparaiso, declared with respect to psychoanalysis: We are very far
from Griesingers aphorism [that claimed]: Mental illnesses are illnesses
of the brain. An emphasis on material processes should not
exclude . . . the study of psychological motivation (Andueza, 1938, p.
509). Thus, in the 1930s there was a greater circulation of psychoanalytical
ideas aimed at the general public. Parents, educators and doctors, thanks to
Freuds teachings, had a better understanding of the infants soul and, as a
result, were in a better position to avoid future illnesses. Child psychology
should be a crucial resource in the life of parents of our time for raising
their children, claimed Juvenile Judge Samuel Gajardo, of the Santiago
Juvenile Court. The social representation of infancy incorporated the
category of the perverse polymorph, as described by Freud. The
development of personality was the subject of much discussion at that
time. Gajardo declared:
Authors like Lombroso and Freud consider the child as a little savage.
The observation is quite true, since children show some clear antisocial
behaviour conducive to lying, pretending, stealing, aggressiveness, cruelty; all
of which in the eyes of an adult are regarded as serious crimes. (Gajardo, 1955,
p. 22)

Gajardo was, furthermore, committed to promoting sexual education

and became recognized as an expert in the field (Gajardo, 1936). He
insisted on the need to recognize infantile sexuality as an element of the
civilizing process, and therefore encouraged sex education for children. In
conjunction with a medical team, Gajardo participated in the Family
Education Centres organized by the Department of Social Hygiene, which
were aimed at implementing sex education courses for parents, teachers
and doctors. He was personally responsible for the classes on Freuds
sexual theory (Bahamonde, 1937). Doctor Gustavo Vila held similar
positions and set up a project focusing on Problema Asistencial de la
Infancia y Juventud [Problems of care in infancy and youth], in which he
pointed out the need that teachers be trained in infantile psychology,
neuropsychiatry and psychoanalysis to help parents and ordinary teachers
deal with neurotic children (Vila, 1940). Along the same lines, Doctor
Carlos Nassar (1946), from the Universidad de Chiles Psychiatric Clinic
stated that the findings of psychoanalysis had been more consistent and
better received in the field of infantile psychiatry than in general
psychiatry.
Most authors of the time were in favour of the following two main kinds
of treatment to combat venereal disease a direct attack (treatment) or an
indirect approach (prevention). The first proposed the expansion of
treatment centres, compulsory and free treatment, the exact
identification of infected individuals by means of a sanitation certificate,

MARIANO RUPERTHUZ HONORATO

293

and the creation of a statistics centre. Preventive measures, on the other

hand, sought to make all social classes aware of the problem and its
solutions. As a result, sex education for children, youngsters and adults was
an adequate tool to overcome once and for all the conspiracy of silence
and the prejudice about embarrassing diseases (Banderas, 1935, p. 531).
According to psychiatrist Manuel Francisco Beca, Freuds contribution was
to recognize the childs instinctive potential and the need for education in
order to guide these impulses to better ends (Beca, 1940).14 This was
supposed to encourage future men and women to behave more responsibly
in their sexual lives and significantly reduce the probability of venereal
infection, unwanted pregnancies and risky sexual acts.
Consequently, the belief that psychoanalytic ideas should be part of the
repertoire of knowledge of the population was encouraged. Instinctive
sexuality also referred to as impulsive was recognized as one of the
most important drives of behaviour that could lead to the most atrocious or
most sublime results (Bahamonde, 1937). Other authors, such as Waldemar
E. Coutts, backed by Samuel Gajardo, declared that sexuality was one of
the primary causes behind most crimes (Coutts, 1930). Sublimation was
therefore presented as a fundamental mechanism on which to build human
society. Juan Marn doctor, writer, poet, diplomat and a great promoter
of Freudian ideas declared:
At the top end of this scale you will find human reasoning capable of
sublimating ancestral impulses as per Freud or rising above the lower levels
of their innate personality through a process that is perfectly clear to
contemporary psychology. One of the merits of the illustrious psychiatrist
from Vienna is to have demonstrated that the soul is capable of perfecting itself
and can undergo positive modifications. (Marn, 1938, p. 14)

He went on: Mental Hygiene, the goddaughter of Psychoanalysis, allows

us to imagine a humanity without madness or neurotics (Marn, 1938,
p. 41).
Finally, and reflecting this spirit, Freuds works, as well as the translation
of the Complete Works by Luis Lopez Ballesteros, were published locally
on a massive scale, including various low-cost re-editions, by publishers
such as Zig-Zag, Pax, Ercilla, Prometeo and Cultura. Following the
example of other Latin-American countries, a collection under the title
Freud para todos [Freud for all] by Doctor J. Gomez Nerea, a pseudonym
used by the Peruvian poet Alberto Hidalgo Lobato (Plotkin, 2003), was
published in Chile, indicating the success of this genre of publication in the

14. Beca, a renowned Catholic, published various essays along these lines in the
Catholic magazine Cronicas. He also participated in a publication entitled El
Matrimonio Cristiano.

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local market. The works were promoted by appealing to the value of their
scientific knowledge the category under which psychoanalysis was
classified. It was regarded at the time as a light to illuminate the
darkness in which a population full of prejudice and dogma lived. Thus, in
Chile as in other Latin American countries the reception of
psychoanalytic ideas went more smoothly among social reformers,
intellectuals and judges who saw in Freuds ideas a powerful educational
tool, than among psychiatrists who were concerned with securing the
scientific status of their discipline, and were therefore more reluctant to
introduce questionable ideas into it.

Acknowledgements
I wish to express my gratitude for the invaluable help of my research
assistants, Camila Berrios Molina and Joaqun Carrasco Bahamonde, in
the course of this investigation. I am also very grateful to my colleague,
Javier Caro Valdes, for his observations and suggestions regarding this
project, as well as for the comments and all the help I have received from
my co-advisor, Mariano Plotkin, in the preparation of this paper. And,
finally, all my love to Marcia Ibarra Galaz and our adored Amanda.

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ABSTRACT

The article discusses the medical reception of psychoanalysis in Chile from the
1910s through to its institutionalization in the late 1940s. Until the 1930s
psychoanalysis was mostly rejected by Chilean psychiatrists who were under
the influence of the French School because of its unscientific and excessive
emphasis on sexuality. In the early 1930s psychoanalysis was reassessed and
became accepted within medical circles as an expert knowledge on sexuality and as
a preventive tool against social diseases.
Key words: history, psychoanalysis, Chile, medical circles, sexuality, social medicine