Néstor Braunstein

Braunstein was born in Bell Ville. He graduated as a physician in 1962, at the age of 20, and received his M.D. in 1965 from the Universidad Nacional de Córdoba, Argentina, where he taught at college level as early as 1959. In 1974 he was forced into exile for political and academic reasons and moved to Mexico where he worked as a psychiatrist in different public institutions for the treatment of both children and adults. Braunstein is a naturalized citizen of Mexico. He was a studies professor, a practicing psychoanalyst and an active writer. Nestor Braunstein died on September 7, 2022 in Spain.

Following several years of struggle with illness, Braunstein ended his life in his house in Barcelona on September 7, 2022.

To be published in Paris, Au bord de l'eau, 2014. Translation by Ana Claudia Delgado Restrepo.

In his last book published in French, Depuis Freud, Après Lacan (Ramonville, Érès, 2008) Braunstein posited his theory of three different periods in the history of psychoanalysis. They can be emblematically traced to the year 1900 (Freud's era, under the predominance of the discourse of the Master), 1950 (Lacan's times, under the hegemony of the discourse of the Capitalist) and our present age (year 2000), ruled by the omnipresent and anonymous discourse of the Markets.

Published in Portuguese as: Gozo, São Paulo, Escuta, 2007. ISBN 978-85-7137-257-3, and currently being translated into English (Verso, 2001)

His works dealt with a variety of subjects in terms of the relationship between psychoanalysis and culture: philosophy from Plato to Wittgenstein and Derrida; literature from Sophocles to Sebald and Christa Wolf; the visual arts; music; opera; film theater; history; theology; medicine; neuroscience; law; linguistics; anthropology; academic psychology; pedagogy; politics; psychiatry and daily life in the 21st century. In 2003 he turned his attention to the subject of memory, articulating the meaning and research on the ability to remember in psychoanalysis and its constant references (Sigmund Freud and Jacques Lacan) and those sources that can be derived from other disciplines such as literature, philosophy, history and neuroscience.

Braunstein was invited to write the chapter “Desire and Jouissance in Lacanian Teachings” in The Cambridge Companion to Lacan (Cambridge, London and Boston, 2003), Jean-Michel Rabaté (ed.). ISBN 0-521-80744-1 and ISBN 0-521-00203-6

He was active in the psychoanalytic lecturing circuit and gave both opening and closing lectures in several international symposiums including the following: Bogota (Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, 1991 [3], Beijing (Psychoanalysis International Symposium, Peking University Health Science Center, Beijing April, 2001), Paris (Lacan, 100 ans, la Sorbonne, January 23, 2000), New York City (Columbia University and Fordham University, 1992 and 2008 [4] Apres-Coup announcement of Columbia lectures, Madrid (Universidad Complutense, Master en Teoría Psicoanalítica 1993 and 1997) [5], Istanbul (Istanbul'da Psykanaliz, Etkinlikleri Sürüyor, September, 2001), Rome(Fondation Européennne pour la Psychanalyse, RSI /Eros-ion, Les peintures de Leonardo Cremonini, May, 1999) and Santiago de Chile (Universidad Andrés Bello. Mención Psicoanálisis, April 2000) [6].

Beginning in 1985, he traveled constantly to different cities of America and Europe imparting seminars on Lacanian psychoanalysis.

In 1980 he published a pioneering book dealing with Lacanian psychoanalysis, the first to appear in Mexico, Psiquiatría, teoría del sujeto, psicoanálisis. (Hacia Lacan) which was also received with general acclaim; 14 editions were printed and is widely read, referred to and quoted. Beginning in 1981 he became the editor of a continuously reprinted series of books, Coloquios de la Fundación with 13 titles published that helped to expand the knowledge of Freudian and Lacanian psychoanalysis in Latin America.

In 1978 he was banned from his duties and positions in all Mexican psychiatric institutions because of his critical epistemological views on the official taxonomies of the so-called mental illnesses (then DSM-III and CIE-10.

In Mexico, he introduced Lacan's teachings by different means in different venues. He taught the first course devoted to Lacanian Studies (UNAM, 1977), published the first Mexican article on Lacan (Lust, Mexico, n° 1, 1979) and wrote the forementioned book Psiquiatría, teoría del sujeto, psicoanálisis (Hacia Lacan. In 1980 he co-founded a pioneering institute devoted to the Lacanian clinic (Fundación Mexicana de Psicoanálisis). Braunstein was also the chairman and co-founder of the first officially recognized psychoanalytic teaching institution in the country (Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Psicoanalíticos, 1982) where he taught until 2003.

Immediately after arriving in Mexico he published (with some chapters written by Marcelo Pasternac, Frida Saal and Gloria Benedito): Psicología: Ideología y ciencia in which he demolishes academic psychology and denounces its conceit as a true science. Instead, Braunstein proposed psychoanalysis as an alternative and as a methodological tool to deal with human subjectivity and to redirect the study of psychology. The book had enormous success: 24 editions were printed between 1975 and 2008 (more than 70,000 copies sold). This work helped to change the ideological landscape in almost every school of psychology in Spanish speaking countries of Latin America and the author was invited to lecture about his ideas on psychology and psychoanalysis to commemorate the 20th, 25th and 30th anniversary of the first edition of the book.

Between 1975 and 2005 he taught Freudian and Lacanian psychoanalysis in the Graduate Studies Department of Clinical Psychology at the Facultad de Psicología of the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México and since 2005 he has been teaching in the Facultad de Filosofía y Letras of that same institution. He is a member of the board and professor in the Ph.D. in Critical Theory of 17, Instituto de Estudios Críticos [1] and Secretary of the Administrative Board of Siglo Veintiuno Editores [2].

Néstor Alberto Braunstein (1941 – 2022) was an Argentine-Mexican physician, psychiatrist and psychoanalyst.