As Brazil heads into the first round of its presidential election this Sunday, a group of Jungian psychologists and analysts has published a manifesto addressing the vote directly. In an email to the IAJS mailing list, Carmen Livia Parise described the stakes: “we are going through a very sensitive and distressing time in Brazilian politics. Hard-won rights such as democracy, sovereignty, and women’s suffrage are under threat,” with a “far-right, proto-fascist candidacy… in a virtual dead heat with the other candidate.” She credited the manifesto’s organisation to Vicente Baron Mussi, “who has been doing brilliant work at the intersection of Jungian psychology and politics,” and who gathered a group of colleagues to launch this document.
The manifesto opens from a premise rooted in depth psychology. That no suffering is purely private, only personal, since the way a society organises work, care, and the imagination of the future directly shapes subjectivity itself. From there, it sets out seven guiding values; care, dignity, freedom, community, democracy, sovereignty, and the future. Each is elaborated with its own statement of belief. Under care, the manifesto argues that vulnerability and interdependence are fundamental to human relationships, and that caring for people should be treated as a collective responsibility rather than charity. Under dignity, it holds that every person’s worth lies in their own existence, regardless of productivity or financial performance. Freedom, the authors argue, means having the concrete conditions to choose the course of one’s life, not merely the absence of interference. Community rejects the idea of a fully self-sufficient individual in favour of interdependence, while democracy is framed as a social structure where difference need not become enmity. Under sovereignty, the manifesto argues that a people’s agency over their own resources, labour, and future cannot be separated from a psychology that values individual agency. And the future closes the list with a vision of a Brazil offering dignified futures for everyone, across generations.
The manifesto explicitly states that political choices express a conception of what it means to be human, and that the authors therefore do not believe neutrality is possible on the political choices facing the Brazilian electorate this year. On that basis, the document declares its support for the candidacy of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva for the presidency, arguing that his political project aligns with the seven values it sets out, in contrast to what it describes as a competing political project built on individual blame, fear, and the use of state power for private benefit. You can read the full document here.
The manifesto’s authors include Vicente Baron Mussi (Archés), Rosa Brizola (IJRS/AJB), Maria Angela Damas (Coletivo OCA), Ana Maria Nogueira (CEJAA), Vera Colson Valente (SBPA/SP), Luckas Gorniak (Instituto Casa Solarium), Luiza Assumpção (Coletivo OCA; Instituto do Imaginário), Lorena Kim Richter (Rubicão; Coletivo OCA), Camila Ribeiro Castro Soares (DDSG/AJB; Movimento Feminista da Psicologia Complexa; Rubicão; Coletivo OCA), and Rubens Bragarnich (IJUSP/AJB; Coletivo Pólis, Psique e Política).
The manifesto is open for signature for those who wish to add their support.