Psychoanalysis as a Psycho-social Hyphen in History: Approaching Freud and Walter Benjamin

In the psycho-social field, our struggle is around the way we understand the hyphen that is presupposed in the integration between the psychic and the social. I propose that, in this integration, what dominates is the hyphen, as it is the proper relational essence that is inherent to each of these elements. I suggest that the model proposed by Freud to understand the subject and his/her circumstances imbricates in an indissociable way the psychological and the social, with a potency that had an impact on the whole field of human sciences. Psychoanalysis is a hermeneutic instrument to collaborate in the elucidation of social phenomena. I use images constructed by Freud and Walter Benjamin to strengthen the understanding of the psycho-social hyphen both in its multidimensional action and organization, making possible a production in the psycho-social field that is at the same time redemption of memory, resignification, and reparatory act. Finally, I use poems by the Brazilian writer Carlos Drummond de Andrade to show how Benjamin’s angel of history and his conception of memory may present themselves as a personal angel (or ghost) demanding reparation.