A Double Doubt: Neurotic Self and Agency in an Era of Shifting Ideology in Cuba

Russo, Concetta

Palmyra Fiber as Additional Materials on Solid Concrete Brick of Aggregate
Vol. 3 No. 8 (2012): Special Issue

The clashing of Cuba and the capitalist world economy has heralded a new beginning in Cuba’s revolutionary historiography.This paper analyzes the psychotherapy as a way to reconceptualise subjectivity in this era of shifting ideology.My research has beencarried out in a Mental Health Community centre in La Habana (Cuba). Patients of this kind of Service are referred to as “neurotics”,people who, even though without a severe mental disorder, need psychological support because in a difficult moment of their lives. In asituation where the patient is disoriented about his/her perception of the "state of things", psychiatrists and psychologists may becomethe patient’s guide.Nevertheless, as the results of my ethnographic research suggest, psychiatrists and psychologists don’t use theirrole to shape the psychiatric care into a form of governmentality. Instead, they use the therapy, and the ironic speech sometimesincluded in it, also to highlight the social contradictions that bring citizens to a neurotic behaviour.