“Remember, repeat and elaborate”: the actions recognized by Freud in psychoanalysis in the light of the life and works of Frida Kahlo

This critical and reflective investigation seeks to think about the patient's actions of “Remember, Repeat and Elaborate”, recognized in clinical dynamics by the Austrian psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud in 1914, in articulation with the life and works of the Mexican painter Frida Kahlo. This is a scientific production of a qualitative nature, carried out using the inductive method. In view of the reflections raised, we understand that the transference process used by the artist, materialized in the act of painting, acted as an artistic-therapeutic work developed by her as a way of living with and surviving the difficulties she faced throughout her life, the repetition of which contributed to maintaining her psychic health. As a result, her paintings were described by her in terms of the purest expression of self. We understand that, in this expression, Kahlo did not deny an experience pervaded by pain, but used art as a way of living and working through her difficulties.