This article describes in what way psychoanalysis was received in the medical context of the city of Rio de Janeiro in the 1900s and 1910s as a medical and scientific device to support the treatment of nervous diseases and mental disorders. We describe its early reception and emphasize Brazil’s first medical thesis about psychoanalysis written by Genserico Pinto in 1914, as well as some of the first clinical cases he discusses in his research. To conclude, we show how essential the initiatives of Freud’s first readers in Rio de Janeiro were to overcome the early opposition against psychoanalytical knowledge.
Key words:
History of psychoanalysis; Rio de Janeiro; Genserico Pinto; nervous diseases