REVISTA DE PSIQUIATRIA Y DISCIPLINAS CONEXAS

Hermilio Valdizán and Honorio Delgado founded the review Revista de psiquiatria y disciplinas conexas in Lima in 1918. The subtitle highlights its interdisciplinary vocation: "A quarterly publication on psychiatry, psychoanalysis, pedagogy, sociology, forensic medicine, criminology and the history of medicine." By 1924 five volumes had appeared in quarterly issues. The review achieved the objective it had set for itself: it was the first modern review of psychiatry in Peru.

The psychoanalytic content of the publication is remarkable in comparison to the dates of appearance of the dedicated psychoanalytic reviews of the time: Imago (1912), Internationale Zeitschrift für Psychoanalyse (1913), and The Psychoanalytic Review (1913) are the only ones to precede it. The International Journal of Psycho-Analysis and the Revue FrançaisedePsychanalyse did not appear until 1920 and 1927 respectively. In a country as isolated from the international psychoanalytic community as Peru, and exposed to the difficulties of communication and the prejudices of a Catholic society, such an event is all the more remarkable.

With the appearance of the third issue (January, 1920) the review became militant, with an editorial signed by Delgado, "Freud and the psychoanalytic movement," illustrated with a full-page portrait of the founding father. Sigmund Freud mentioned the publication on two occasions: in a footnote added in 1923 to "On the History of the Psychoanalytic Movement," (1914d) and in a note added in 1924 to The Psycho-pathology of Everyday Life (1901b).

These facts confirm that Freud read the review attentively. In a letter dated 1924 he complained about its disappearance and asked Delgado if he intended to introduce another publication. In a report on Spanish-language psychoanalytic literature, Karl Abraham quotes from and comments on different works by Delgado and authors writing in the review. In 1922 an agreement was reached to publish a Spanish version of Die Don Juan Gestalt, but the project was hindered by the length of the work. The content of the review with regard to psychoanalytic books and publications proved to be top quality; it published timely comments on recent works by Freud, Abraham, and Sándor Ferenczi, and reports on the journals Imago, Internationale Zeitschrift für Psychoanalyse, and The International Journal of Psycho-Analysis.

Honorio Delgado figures with Paul Wilson and Hermilio Valdizán among those who published most on psychoanalysis in Peru at the time. Wilson, who always published in English, is most noteworthy for "The Imperceptible Obvious," on which Freud commented in detail in the above-mentioned note in Psychopathology. The article that appeared under the pseudonym "A. Z." in volume 2, number 1 (July, 1919): "Psychoanalytic treatment of a case of compulsive neurosis," constitutes the first Spanish-language account of psychoanalytic treatment.

It is difficult to determine the impact of the review. Its authors lacked analytic experience and made excessive claims to therapeutic success. Their theories were eclectic: a blend of ideas from Freud, Adler, and Jung. In spite of this, the review played a pioneering role in Latin America and in the Spanish-speaking community, contributing in a remarkable fashion to the spread of knowledge about psychoanalysis.

Álvaro Rey de Castro

See also: "A. Z."; Delgado, Honorio; Peru; Valdizán, Hermilio.

Bibliography

Abraham, Karl. (1921). Literatur in spanischer Sprache. In Bericht über die Fortschritte der Psychoanalyse in den Jahren 1914-1919 (pp. 366-367). Leipzig, Wien and Zürich: Internationaler psychoanalytischer Verlag.

Freud, Sigmund. (1901b). The psychopathology of everyday life. SE,6.

——. (1914d). On the history of the psycho-analytic movement. SE, 14: 1-66.

Mariátegui, Javier, and León, Ramón. (1987). La Revista de psiquiatría y disciplinas conexas (1918-1924) (pp. 1-41). Lima: Instituto de Salud Mental y Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia.

Rey de Castro,Álvaro. (1993). Lettres de Sigmund Freud à Honorio Delgado, 1919-1934. Revue internationale d'histoire de la psychanalyse, 6.