MARTINS, CYRO (1908-1995)

Cyro Martins, a Brazilian psychoanalyst and full member and training analyst of the Psychoanalytic Society of Pôrto Alegre, was born on August 5, 1908, and died in Pôrto Alegre on December 15, 1995. He spent his childhood in Quarai, where life was dedicated to farming. In 1920 at age eleven, he went to Pôrto Alegre to attend school and prepare for medical school, which he entered in 1928. Besides having an interest in medicine, from very early on Cyro proved to be a writer. When he was fifteen, he published his first short stories dealing with life in the country. "Influenced by friends and rural life, I wrote because of a personal feeling of disquiet," he said, recalling his childhood and adolescence.

During his last year at medical school, Martins became interested in studying psychiatry. After medical school he returned to Quarai, where he worked for three years, and in 1937 he went to Rio de Janeiro to study neurology and psychiatry. The following year he moved to Pôrto Alegre, where be began to work as a psychiatrist. From 1946 to 1948 he was an assistant instructor in neurology at the Pôrto Alegre Medical School.

In 1951 he and his friend Mário Martins went to Buenos Aires, where, at the Argentine Psychoanalytic Society, he concluded his psychoanalytic training. He was analysed by Arnaldo Rascowski, and his teachers included Angel Garma, Leon Grinberg, Enrique Pichon-Riviere, Arminda Aberastury, and Heinrich Racker. He was supervised by Pichon-Riviere and by Dr. Alvarez Toledo. In 1956 he returned to Pôrto Alegre and, together with Mário Martins, José Lemmertz, and Celestino Prunes, founded the Pôrto Alegre Center for Psychoanalytic Studies, the nucleus of the study group acknowledged by the International Psychoanalytical Association in 1961. In 1963 the center became the Psychoanalytic Society of Pôrto Alegre. Martins was president of the society from 1965 to 1969. He was also president of the first Brazilian Congress of Psychoanalysis, organized by the society. He represented the society at various Brazilian congresses and was the official reporter on creativity at the Brazilian psychoanalytic congress held in Rio de Janeiro. Martins was a founding member of the Psychiatric Society of Pôrto Alegre and president for two successive terms. He was also a founder of the Society of Psychosomatic Medicine of Pôrto Alegre. As a consultant, he remained active and dedicated to the interests of the Psychoanalytic Society of Pôrto Alegre.

Martins wrote and published many papers, especially in the Revista brasileira de psicanálise. In 1964 he published the first book on psychoanalysis in Pôrto Alegre, Do mitoà verdade científica: Estudos psicanalíticos (From myth to scientific truth: Psychoanalytic studies), a collection of his lectures and scientific papers presented at congresses.

A kind person who inspired respect and admiration, Martins died on December 15, 1995, in Pôrto Alegre.

Germano Vollmer Filho

See also: Brazil; Federación psicoanalítica de América latina.

Bibliography

Martins, Cyro. (1964). Do mito à verdade científica: Estudos psicanalíticos. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: Globo.

——. (1968). Regression in the analytic process: Transferential snapshot. Revista brasileira de psicanálise, 2,191-197.

——. (1969). Sex identity disorders in Diadorim, a figure in the novel Grande sertão: Veredas. Revista brasileira de psicanálise, 3, 406-415.

——. (1973). Perspectivas do humanismo psicanalítico. Pôrto Alegre, Brazil: Sulina.

——. (1976). Contribution to the study of the history of psychoanalysis in Brazil. Revista brasileira de psicanálise, 10, 289-293.

——. (1994). Summary of history and relations with I.P.A. Revista brasileira de psicanálise, 28, 419-424.

Martins, Cyro, and Slavutzky, Abrão. (1990). Para início de conversa. Pôrto Alegre, Brazil: Movimento.