Frida Kahlo, Psyche and Soma, Trauma and Creativity

This issue is based on the life and work of the Mexican painter Frida Kahlo. At the VII Nordic conference for IFPS members 1997 in Helsinki/Tuusula, the Therapeia Society offered the participants a thorough encounter with Frida Kahlo. The conference started with a guided tour of an exhibition of Kahlo's paintings from The Museo Dolores Olmedo Patiño and other Mexican collections, arranged by the Helsinki City Art Museum. After lunch a scholarly paper by Pirkko Siltala was presented: “I Made a Picture of My Life, A Life from the Picture” which in a modified form is the main feature of this issue. The day was completed by a dance performance: “Viva la Frida”, a dance-dramatic presentation of Frida Kahlo's life.

We are happy to be able to complement Pirkko Siltala's article with two interesting, although differing, responses — in fact they are growing out to be more than responses, to be original voices in their own right. Diane F. Barth from New York writes on “Psyche and Soma: The Body as Canvas”, and Nancy A. Smith from California on “The Strength of the Creative Impulse in the Aftermath of Trauma”. We thus offer our readers a womanly quartet spanning over oceans and continents of space and time. Together they perform a kind of elegy on human suffering and creativity.

In addition to the Kahlo quartet, we offer a male trio moving in a similar way between dark despair and the joy of life. Pekka Kiviranta presents his work with a psychotic patient Matti, a work encompassing the therapist's and patient's mutual concern for each other in ways that remind us of one of the most moving therapeutic ventures - the mutual analysis of Ferenczi and Elisabeth Severn (1). Gaetano Benedetti's lucid and compassionate speech at the Madrid Forum on his lifelong work with severely disturbed human beings catches the themes of the previous papers and brings them together in a humble and hopeful final on the potentialities of human care.