Trees that Dance, Heal!: Cultural Rooting and Mental Health in Latin America.
Cultural Rooting. Latin America. Complex Psychology. Diasporia. Sensitive resistance.
The thesis proposes the concept of Cultural Rooting: a deep bond between individuals, groups and their cultures of origin; territory, ancestry and traditions, sustaining an identity and belonging connected to mental health and sensitive resistance, in the context of Latin America. This concept was explored based on a critical and “Brazilianized” reading of Carl Gustav Jung’s Complex Psychology. The study used the volumes of the Complete Works and the compendium of Jung’s Letters as the main corpus, analyzed through the adaptation of the Word Association technique in conjunction with the MaxQDA software. The methodology was inspired by the metaphor of Afro-Brazilian braids, seeking images in the intertwining of the frequency and semantics of main terms: “culture”, “territory”, “ancestry”, “ancestor”, “ancestors”, “root”, “race”, “racial”, “individuality” and “identity”. The analysis revealed hegemonic Eurocentric gaps in Jung's work, but also highlighted potential to expand and fill a transcultural dialogue between Complex Psychology and intellectuals from the Brazilian African diaspora. Through the metaphor of Mother Trees, it concludes that Cultural Rooting is a practice of continuous recreation, connecting to ancestral roots and strengthening cultural identities in the face of attempts at cultural erasure, that is, uprooting. It also favors sensitive resistance. Thus, the thesis proposes, based on Complex Psychology, to expand the sensitive act to the dynamics of resistance and transformation of Ladina America, with the potential to support research and knowledge production practices such as diaporia, in addition to connecting to therapies that value cultural and symbolic plurality.