Memory, trauma and repetition in Freud: a discussion based on Frida Khalo’s Henry Ford Hospital

Abstract

This article aims to contribute to the field of studies on memory by bringing together art and psychoanalysis. Above all, it seeks to foster discussions related to the concepts of memory and repetition, considering the possibility of reframing trauma through the creative process. The work is anchored in Freudian psychoanalysis and promotes an articulation between these theoretical concepts and the analysis of the life and artistic production of Mexican painter Frida Kahlo. The objective, therefore, is to understand how the creative process can act as a means of elaborating and reframing traumatic experiences, based on the hypothesis that Frida Kahlo's self-portraits function as a differential repetition, that is, a repetition that transforms, rather than merely symptomatically repeating suffering. Since suffering seems to be a defining feature of the Mexican painter's life story — with a history of childhood polio that left her with lasting effects, an accident that nearly cost her her life, required numerous surgeries, and prevented her from having children, and a troubled relationship – the article examines how her creative process and her ability to (re)elaborate traumatic memories are intertwined. More specifically, the text analyzes how Frida Kahlo reframes the suffering resulting from a miscarriage through the creation of the 1932 painting Henry Ford Hospital.