Abstract

PENAFIEL, Mauricio García. The look, the enjoyment and the encounter with the invisible. About the susto disease in the chilean popular culture. Actual. psicol. [online]. 2012, vol.26, n.113, pp. 15-31. ISSN 0258-6444.

The article develops an anthropological and psychoanalytical interpretation and reading of a Folk illness in Chile: the fright (Susto or Espanto) disease. From ethnographic and clinical material we specifically analyzes the fascination and the fear that - according to collected narratives - is suscitated by the encounter with the look of a spirit that provokes the fright: the Fantasma. This ambiguous description of the effects of the visual encounter is present in many other myths and traditions in different cultures, in which the "look at" is repeatedly treated as a vehicle of desire. From the analysis of the collected material it is argued that when the look is prohibited by different traditions, this is to keep the subject in need to avoid slipping to the enjoyment of forming a unity with the other.

Keywords : etnopsychoanalysis; look; enjoyment; fantasy; susto disease.

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