A Psychoanalytic Understanding of the Chilean Political Transition and Current social Movements. A Review of Totem and Taboo in our Days

In this paper, the authors analyze the Chilean transition to democracy and try to comprehend the current social movements in the country. In order to do so, they use Freud’s work Totem and taboo, especially the assimilation between the father of the primitive horde and the dictator. The authors argue that the brothers of the horde are the Pact of Parties for Democracy, which unconsciously assumes a totem: the economic model and the constitution introduced during the dictatorship. The links with the subsequent social movements and the difficulties of mourning, which result from the authoritarian regime, are analyzed. A model for the transition following a dictatorship, which can be related as an internal factor with the current social movements in Chile is finally discussed.