The effects of migration on the psyche

Psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Plinio Montagna

Geographical shifts and cultural context changes associated with migration movements cause profound transformations in the psyche of individuals who migrate. The theme will be explored by psychoanalyst Plinio Montagna at the conference Migrant Soul, to be held by IEA-USP's Intercultural Dialogues Research Group on November 18, at 5.30 pm, in the Institute's event room.

The debaters of the meeting will be professors Adriana Capuano de Oliveira, from the Center for Engineering, Modeling and Applied Social Sciences of the Federal University of the ABC (UFABC), Sylvia Duarte Dantas, from the Department of Psychology of the Federal University of São Paulo (UNIFESP) and coordinator of the research group, and Ligia Fonseca Ferreira, from UNIFESP's Department of Languages. Coordination will be in charge of Maura Pardini Bicudo Véras, from the Department of Sociology at the Catholic University of São Paulo (PUC-SP).

Montagna's exhibition will address centralization and decentralization of the individual due to migratory transits and focus on the interaction between what is internal and external to migrants, especially the issues of identity.

The psychoanalyst will also address the tension between Sigmund Freud's concepts of soul and mind. According to Dantas, when referring to the scope and essence of psychic individuals, Freud speaks of Seele, German for "soul." However, as the author did not attribute a mystical sense to the word, the translation of his work into English has replaced Seele by mind, "obfuscating and reducing its deepest sense."

The event will be broadcast live on the web.

PROFILE

Psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, Plinio Montagna has majored and holds a master's degree from USP's Faculty of Medicine (FMUSP), where he has also been a professor, and specialized in Social Psychiatry at the Institute of Social Psychiatry of London University. He has been editor of the Brazilian Journal of Psychoanalysis, and president of the Brazilian Association of Psychoanalysis (FEBRAPSI) and the Brazilian Psychoanalysis Society of São Paulo (SBPSP), from which he is a current Professor and the former scientific director.

Photo: personal archive of Plinio Montagna