Untying the Knots: Gender and Psychopathology Split Among Joanas and Medeas

Abstract

This study on cultural representations of Medea's myth explores the persistent link between gender category of women and psychopathology. From a critical feminist perspective, it examines historical moments where such characteristics have been connected to a distortion between feminine nature and social construction. The aim is to highlight how this association is rooted in official discourse, generating discrimination in mental health care and in self-representations of female gender. In a Jungian reading, using situated discourse analysis as a method, two works are investigated: the classic Medea by Euripides from 431 B.C. (2013) and Gota d'água (1975/2019) by Chico Buarque and Paulo Pontes, contextualized in Brazil under the military regime. The main findings point to intense emotion and vulnerability as central attributes of Medea and Joana in the analyzed works. The results also suggest the presence of authorial difference, found in the decolonial perspective of the Brazilian work. In the conclusion, the Jungian symbolic amplification of cultural representations of the feminine proves to be an interesting resource for destabilizing the institutionalized clinical discourses that conceal psychological suffering originating from gender issues. Thus, the need to revise concepts to promote more up-to-date psychotherapeutic approaches in the ethical and political field is highlighted.