A histeria e o sexual como espetáculo: reflexões sobre psicanálise e fotografia a partir de Georges Didi-Huberman

Este artigo explora as relações entre psicanálise e fotografia a partir do Serviço Fotográfico da Salpêtrière, onde Freud realizou, em 1886, um estágio de pesquisa com Jean-Martin Charcot. À luz do trabalho de Georges Didi-Huberman, o objetivo deste artigo é mostrar de que maneira a fotografia pode se prestar a uma investigação psicanalítica. A começar pela Salpêtrière, com toda sua importância na história da psicanálise, cuja relevância fica ainda mais evidente quando a ênfase recai sobre sua célebre iconografia fotográfica.

Charcot: Buddhist Leanings?

Jean-Martin Charcot, considered the father of modern neurology, had a complex personality featuring well-defined characteristics of introversion, competitiveness, irony, and skepticism. While biographers have described him as Republican, anticlerical, and agnostic, the literature also presents evidence that he came to admire Buddhism toward the end of his life; Charcot’s involvement with numerous patients suffering from incurable and insidious neurological diseases may have contributed to this change in attitude.

Jean-Martin Charcot (1825–1893) and his second thoughts about hysteria

ABSTRACT Jean-Martin Charcot's (1825–1893) concepts of hysteria evolved significantly over the last 20 years of his career. In the “Leçons du Mardi à la Salpêtrière” (Tuesday lessons), his original conception of a “dynamic lesion” coexists alongside a new psychological conception, sometimes in a rather contradictory way. According to the hand-written transcript of his Tuesday lesson on February 21st, 1888, Charcot stated: “Hysteria must be taken for what it is: psychic disease par excellence”. However, in the printed edition of the Tuesday lessons, this emphasis on psychological factors was very much softened. The different wording and corresponding shift in meaning implicitly retrieved Charcot's former conception of a “dynamic lesion”. Charcot himself had probably been made aware of the different wording by the editors, and had agreed upon it. After several years of studying this condition, Charcot was probably not confident enough in making too assertive conclusions on the psychological mechanisms underlying hysteria.

The Art of Charcot: An Outstanding Caricaturist

Jean-Martin Charcot is considered the father of modern neurology; alongside his work as a physician, professor, and researcher in this area, he was also artistically gifted with a taste for caricature. This historical note summarizes 8 caricatures by Charcot that exhibit a mixture of humor, satire, irony, and sarcasm.

Charcot and His Passion for Dogs: A Historical Note

Jean-Martin Charcot, one of the most brilliant neurologists in history, was a man of few words and few gestures. He had an impenetrable and unmovable face and was described as being austere, reserved, and shy. In contrast, in his personal life, he was a softhearted man who loved animals – especially dogs. In this historical note, we sought to look into the past and learn more about Dr. Charcot’s personal life – which was robustly impacted by his passion for dogs.

Composing the Crisis: From Mesmer's Harmonica to Charcot's Tam-tam

Hypnosis used sound and musico-dramatic methods to effect previously unanticipated kinds of changes in body and psyche, showing a ‘sonic turn’ in this new kind of medicine. For Franz Anton Mesmer, musical techniques and instruments were essential elements of his theory and practice, not merely adjuncts, as previous research has tended to assume. The musical structures of the Classical style provided Mesmer with patterns for artificially inducing and regulating his patients’ crises, whose periodicity medicine previously considered fixed and unchangeable. Mesmer executed these therapeutic strategies using the recently invented glass harmonica. From the Marquis de Puységur to Jean-Martin Charcot, Mesmer's successors turned their attention to somnambulism and catalepsy, sleep-like states often induced by the sound of a tam-tam, an Asian gong new to Western music. The contrast between harmonica and tam-tam reflects the passage in musical techniques from modulating dramatic crises to obliterating consciousness itself. Even considered as suggestion, hypnosis followed processes of intensification and dramatization characteristic of Classical and Romantic music.