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International Forum of Psychoanalysis

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Editorial: Frida Kahlo, Psyche and Soma, Trauma and

Creativity
Published online: 05 Aug 2010.

To cite this article: (1998) Editorial: Frida Kahlo, Psyche and Soma, Trauma and Creativity, International Forum of
Psychoanalysis, 7:3, 129-129, DOI: 10.1080/080370698436790

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 Int Forum Psychoanal 7:(129), 1998
Editorial: Frida Kahlo, Psyche and Soma, Trauma and Creativity
This issue is based on the life and work of the
Mexican painter Frida Kahlo. At the VII Nordic
conference for IFPS members 1997 in Helsinki/
Tuusula, the Therapeia Society offered the partici-
pants a thorough encounter with Frida Kahlo. The
conference started with a guided tour of an exhibition
of Kahlo9s paintings from The Museo Dolores
Olmedo Patiño and other Mexican collections,
arranged by the Helsinki City Art Museum. After
lunch a scholarly paper by Pirkko Siltala was pre-
Downloaded by [Lahore University of Management Sciences] at 20:44 17 December 2014
sented: ‘‘I Made a Picture of My Life, A Life from
the Picture’’ which in a modified form is the main
feature of this issue. The day was completed by a
dance performance: ‘‘Viva la Frida’’, a dance-dra-
matic presentation of Frida Kahlo’s life.
We are happy to be able to complement Pirkko
Siltala’s article with two interesting, although differ-
ing, responses – in fact they are growing out to be
more than responses, to be original voices in their
own right. Diane F. Barth from New York writes on
‘‘Psyche and Soma: The Body as Canvas’’, and
Nancy A. Smith from California on ‘‘The Strength
of the Creative Impulse in the Aftermath of
q Scandinavian University Press 1998. ISSN 0803-706X
Trauma’’. We thus offer our readers a womanly
quartet spanning over oceans and continents of
space and time. Together they perform a kind of
elegy on human suffering and creativity.
In addition to the Kahlo quartet, we offer a male
trio moving in a similar way between dark despair
and the joy of life. Pekka Kiviranta presents his work
with a psychotic patient Matti, a work encompassing
the therapist’s and patient’s mutual concern for each
other in ways that remind us of one of the most
moving therapeutic ventures - the mutual analysis of
Ferenczi and Elisabeth Severn (1). Gaetano Bene-
detti’s lucid and compassionate speech at the Madrid
Forum on his lifelong work with severely disturbed
human beings catches the themes of the previous
papers and brings them together in a humble and
hopeful final on the potentialities of human care.
Reference
1. Smith NA. Orpha reviving: ‘‘musing’’ about Sandor Ferenczi,
Elisabeth Severn, and the treatment of trauma. Unpublished manu-
script.