Abstract
The term health prevention has been used since the medical paradigm shift quite often within and outside the field of medicine. However, when discussing this concept outside of the field, it is necessary to bring some particularities in question with regards to the time and space in which they occur. The present paper discusses the idea of prevention in Freud’s thinking. Thus, from a review of his writings, the various uses and conceptions he makes of the terms prevention and prophylaxis are investigated. Originating in the 1896 texts and going through others in 1910, 1913, 1926, 1934 until the later articles of 1937, his main elaborations on the subject are highlighted, marked by a fluctuation of positions regarding the possibilities and limits of a preventive psychoanalytic practice. To assist in the articulation we will also use writings of other psychoanalysts on the subject, with the aim of updating the debate on the notion of prevention in psychoanalys.
Keywords:
psychoanalysis; prevention; prophylaxis