Psychosocial history of humanitarian emergencies: systematisation of the Brazilian response to the impact of COVID-19 on the limits of incivility

Abstract

This article presents an in-depth study of the relationship between the actions taken, mainly by the Brazilian Federal Government, during the COVID-19 pandemic in Brazil, surveyed and systematised using the methodology of the Psychosocial History of Humanitarian Emergencies. The events and positions raised, as well as their consequences, were analysed and interpreted based on psychoanalytic literature, organised through a bibliographic review, mainly of Sigmund Freud's work during the First World War. Theodor Adorno's contribution regarding the epistemological and methodological possibility of psychoanalysis to conduct analyses of social situations is also noteworthy. Based on the analysis of these actions and statements made by the then president of the republic to the press, the research demonstrated that the Federal Government's actions, through the undertaking of actions completely contrary to the recommendations of health authorities and scientific institutions, precisely in the undertaking of denialist theses and methodologies such as herd immunity and and the COVID Kit, in addition to attacking all attempts to produce any type of strategy to defend against the virus and protect life, produced a situation of civil breakdown that resulted in and impacted the emergence of specific forms of suffering.