Uruguayan Psychoanalytical Association – APU
University Postgraduate Institute of Psychoanalysis- IUPP
www.apuruguay.org
Raise my heart, kite of mine
Red tear of mine, lit in the day
And in the day beating sunrises
Raise my heart
Líber Falco
APU is the only psychoanalytic institution associated to the IPA in Uruguay. Is also member of FEPAL (Federation of Psychoanalysis of Latin America).
Although Uruguay is a small country with low population (187,000 square kilometers of surface area and just over 3 million inhabitants), the more than two hundred members and analysts in training that make up APU are not the only psychoanalysts: the country has also psychoanalysts from different Lacanian groups and psychoanalytic psychotherapists that are part of an institution that has many members; also including those who are trained in psychoanalysis without seeking institutional belongings, the total constitutes an important percentage in relation to the general population. Psychoanalysis has a presence in the University and in Public Health and is a reference in mental health care. The Uruguayan Psychoanalytical Association, in particular, integrates the group of institutions and organizations that provide guidance to state institutions, which influences a certain level of familiarity on the part of the population with principles of our discipline.
Recently, the local authority of Montevideo has given the name "Sigmund Freud" to a central square, close to the headquarters of APU and to the headquarters of other training institutions in psychoanalysis.
Since 2018 one of the rooms of our headquarters has a tapestry made by the prestigious Uruguayan artist Ernesto Aroztegui, loaned by the family de León–Bernardi, members of APU. The tapestry is titled “Portrait of Sigmund Freud with left lower jaw cancer”
The shadow of the object
It fell on me on my image
reflected in the puddle of water.
I look for myself and find myself in the other
I lose it where I am
I get lost with the other one that I lost
Hugo Achugar: (Demolitions)
Approximately half of the total population of Uruguay is concentrated in the city of Montevideo (capital of the country) that has the characteristics of any city-port: accustomed to the flow of migrations, the defining characteristics of its main representatives at the level of the arts, especially those born in the nineteenth century and in the first half of the twentieth century (painters, musicians, storytellers, poets) seem mostly marked by the low palette of farewells.
No, Sir,
I will never run from Paradise, I have in me
the eternal milk of parents and children,
and I write poems for nostalgia.
Alfredo Fressia
Uruguay is an independent republic and is flanked by two large territories: the Argentine Republic and the Federative Republic of Brazil. The land border and the short distance of Buenos Aires by sea, added to the language community, have historically favoured cultural exchange with Argentina. From there came the first psychoanalysts, who analyzed the members of the Uruguayan psychoanalytic group founder of our institution.
From "T
he Rain Verses"
II
It has the rain noise
So much joy
so much white enthusiasm
clean laugh
that lifts us up:
a thirsty land
looks like the soul
Circe Maia
One of the three training models accepted by IPA is precisely the "Uruguayan Model", whose fundamentals and characteristics can be read on the IPA site. Briefly, we highlight the emphasis on sustaining an analyst figure always in training, who can invest and get rid of the necessary functions for the transmission (analyze, supervise, do teaching practice).
APU, as an IPA component society, administers the IUPP (University Postgraduate Institute of Psychoanalysis of APU), that was accredited as private by the Ministry of Education and Culture (Public National Education Authority) and the training in psychoanalysis it provides, was officially granted the University status of Master in Psychoanalysis, since 2003.
The Institute operates at the headquarters of the Uruguayan Psychoanalytical Association, which favors the integration of analysts in training to the scientific activities and extension (outreach) tasks that are developed through its “Centro de Intercambio” and in coordination with the Training Institute and the Scientific Committee.
Analysts in training are encouraged to join in the different administrative commissions or horizontal study groups that operate in a self-managed way to deepen different topics of interest in psychoanalysis.
Extension work includes community service, which is carried out in response to demands for individual assistance or interventions in state institutions. Dissemination courses of psychoanalysis of low cost are also organized addressed to students and recent graduates, and multiple free open scientific activities, favoring the approach and exchange with people from other disciplines, students, artists and to the general public.
Uruguay is a small country, with striking cultural characteristics, such as popular citizen music, where the candombe stands out, the rhythm of the Afro-descendant community, mostly inserted in the capital. The carnival of Uruguay is called "the longest in the world", takes the entire month of February and is one of the most prominent tourist callers. In its course, parades and competitions of carnival groups are held, of which the typical ones are the candombe - African-inspired drums and dance - and the murga, choir expression inheriting a first musical form originating from southern Spain and the Canary Islands, from where the largest contingent of immigrants at the time of European expansion came over American lands and native populations. The murgas present, in carnival, humorous texts critical of the most outstanding events of each year. That particular mode of humorous and critical expression, was represented in APU, by a group of analysts “Murgapu” who for 10 years used the traditional institutional end of-the-year party to express that way, through humor instrumented as an artistic expression, comments from the annual institutional events. From 2007, the murga was relieved by other forms of group expression, which also with the resources of humor, fulfil an annual entertainment and review function.
It is noteworthy that among the members and analysts in training of APU there are many practitioners of various artistic expressive forms, as training and practice parallel to that of the discipline that brings us together. We have then plastic artists, actors and actresses, writers, poets, musicians and singers. This characteristic favors an institutional tendency towards dialogue facilitated with other disciplines and especially in proximity to the ineffable field of creation.
During the 2018-2020 period, the board of FEPAL is based in Montevideo, so our city and our association will host the next Latin American congress of FEPAL, to be held in September 2020.
Psic. Gladys Franco
President APU, on behalf of the Board of APU 2018-2020
Montevideo, July 31st, 2019.