https://repositorio.ufu.br/handle/123456789/5165 2026-04-06T02:20:25Z https://repositorio.ufu.br/handle/123456789/48582 Title: Velhice como fase da vida: contribuições da Psicologia do Desenvolvimento à constituição de uma Filosofia e Psicologia da Velhice e do Envelhecimento Abstract: This Thesis arises from an ethical and epistemological concern in the face of the contemporary scenario, marked by a ‘longevity revolution’ that, paradoxically, walks side by side with the emptying of meaning in the experience of aging. The central objective of this work is to defend the thesis that old age should not be understood as a residue of adult life or as mere biological decline, but as a legitimate phase of life, endowed with (i) specific psychic tasks, (ii) developmental potentialities, and (iii) its own ontological dignity. To support this proposition, my investigation articulates knowledge from Philosophy, Developmental Psychology (from the life-span perspective), Psychoanalysis (especially Winnicottian), and Historical-Cultural Psychology. In Chapter 1, I dedicate myself to a rigorous conceptual review, seeking to overcome a semantic confusion that, historically, contributed to the pathologization of the elderly. I oppose the reductionist biomedical model, relying, for this purpose, on the life-span perspective to define aging as a lifelong, multidimensional, and multidirectional process, which involves gains and losses, from birth to death. I establish the crucial distinction between aging, this biological-existential process; old age – understood here as a socially and culturally demarcated state –; and the constitution of the elder as the unique subject who inhabits this state. I turn to Simone de Beauvoir to denounce the ‘conspiracy of silence’, which transforms old age into a ‘shameful secret’, arguing that it is both a cultural and biological fact. This conceptual ‘ground clearing’ serves as a basis to affirm that development does not cease at maturity but rather acquires new configurations in the final stage of life. In Chapter 2, I enter the dimension of subjectivity, confronting classical Freudian pessimism regarding the analyzability of the elderly. If Sigmund Freud saw in ego rigidity and the accumulation of mnemonic material obstacles to treatment, I propose a paradigmatic shift towards the work of Donald Woods Winnicott, relying, for this, on the assistance of the Thesis already defended by Flavia Maria de Paula Soares. The central thesis of this chapter is that old age imposes on the subject a task of personal maturation of high complexity: the conquest of the ‘capacity to die’. I argue that health in old age does not lie in the manic maintenance of youthfulness, but in the self’s capacity to perform the movement of ‘integrating the ‘de-integration’’. Unlike pathological disintegration (the fear of breakdown), ‘de-integration’ is the mature acceptance of dependence and the dissolution of the boundaries of the Self, allowing a circular return to the initial state of non-integration, now lived with the wisdom of accumulated experience. For this to occur, however, the presence of a facilitating environment — a ‘clinic of holding’ — is indispensable, one that sustains the subject in the face of the anguish of annihilation and validates their existence until the end. In Chapter 3, I make a dialectical movement from the individual to culture, investigating the role of memory and narrative in the constitution of the elderly subject. Supported by Historical-Cultural Psychology (Vygotsky) and the Social Psychology of Memory (Ecléa Bosi, Halbwachs), I refute the view of memory as a mere neurophysiological archive subject to failure. I argue, with Ecléa Bosi, for the distinction between memory-dream (passive) and memory-work (active). I maintain that the act of remembering in old age is an arduous psychic work of reconstructing the past considering the present, a way of conferring meaning on existence fragmented by time. Autobiographical narrative emerges here not as nostalgia, but as a political act of resistance to ‘social death’ and the identity erasure imposed by consumer society. The elder, by narrating, fulfills the social function of guardian of collective memory and a link between generations, transforming their individual experience into human heritage. Finally, in Chapter 4, theory is confronted with praxis. I present reflections arising from a Professional Internship experience in Psychology within a Long-Term Care Facility for the Elderly (ILPI). In this chapter, I demonstrate how the abstract concepts of holding, perezhivanie (lived experience), and narrative become urgent clinical tools in the care of institutionalized elderly. The account evidences that, even in contexts of frailty and abandonment, the offer of qualified listening allows the subject to rescue their dignity and ‘stitch together’ the pieces of their history. Practice confirms the hypothesis that intervention in old age does not aim at the ‘cure’ of aging, but at sustaining a space in which the subject can continue until they cease to be. The Thesis concludes with the idea that the constitution of a Philosophy and Psychology of Old Age requires abandoning the lenses that see the elder only as a failing body. By integrating the procedural view of development (life-span), the clinical depth of the integration of finitude (Winnicott), and the political dimension of memory (Bosi), I propose an ethics of care that recognizes in the elder a subject of desire and history. Aging, far from being merely the shipwreck of the body, reveals itself as the final stage of a subjective construction, in which the supreme task is to confer meaning on the totality of a life lived, transforming biological destiny into a complete human biography. 2026-03-20T00:00:00Z https://repositorio.ufu.br/handle/123456789/48466 Title: Mens sana in corpore sano: filosofia e corporeidade Abstract: This work aimed to show that Rousseau's reflections on child education are applicable to contemporary school physical education and that, despite the historical distance and the constant evolution of educational conceptions, many of his ideas have relevance and proximity to the precepts found in the current Brazilian National Common Curriculum Base (BNCC). Primarily using the work Emile, or On Education (books I and II), we began by identifying the educational practices related to children that the author considered inadequate in his time: from the lack of breastfeeding by their mothers, to the lack of understanding of the form of language and communication of babies, also passing through the lack of freedom of movement (immobilizing bandages and the use of inappropriate devices, such as baby walkers), to unnecessary interference in the learning and development process of the baby and child. He realizes, thanks to his readings of the classics, that the education of the body, physical education, is also a fundamental requirement for the emotional, cognitive and moral development of children and young people; thus, we recover these ideas and their possible influences on the author's thoughts. Subsequently, after analyzing the BNCC, we compared Rousseau's ideas with this normative document, and regarding physical education, the philosopher's thoughts seem to be of great value. Despite appearing contradictory, they align with what is advocated in the current BNCC. In addition to perceiving significant progress in the country's educational laws, we detected an evolution from the view that physical education is merely sports practice, conceived by the LDB (Law of Directives and Bases of National Education) of 1971 and the educational policies of the military regime, to the idea that it is a bodily culture of movement for all. Therefore, Rousseau highlights the importance of the method of education from nature for the formation of children, allowing greater freedom for them to develop according to the natural flow, and thus promotes this discussion, guided by the use of movement and various bodily practices to validate his proposals. In this way, allowing reflection and connection between Rousseau, Physical Education, and the bodily culture of movement. 2026-02-11T00:00:00Z https://repositorio.ufu.br/handle/123456789/48447 Title: Desejo e sujeição em Judith Butler Abstract: The condition of subjection constitutes subjects through material and subjective relations, as argued by Judith Butler, thereby, this research seeks to understand how desire can be related to subjection and what possible changes this condition causes in desires and in some important aspects of subjects' lives, such as identity and recognition, affection, and parental relationships like family and marriage. Through these instances that are part of the subject's life and their physical and subjective formation, an ethical and political condition is formulated in order to regulate and maintain certain characteristically heterosexual behaviors and ways of living, altering desire, forms of affectivity, and the freedom of subjects to live in diverse ways. It is important, therefore, that these conditions be discussed and discursively altered within the culture, so that subjects can desire and live their lives according to their own will and, in this way, exercise their freedom and the diversity of their desires in opposition to what power imposes as true, recognizable, or legitimate for life. 2025-12-19T00:00:00Z https://repositorio.ufu.br/handle/123456789/48442 Title: Duração e Unidade Dinâmica na Construção da Identidade Pessoal Abstract: This dissertation addresses the issue of personal identity, questioning the capacity of traditional models to reconcile the continuity of the subject with the constant flux of changes. The study is based on a critical evaluation of the modern metaphysical tradition—initiated by John Locke and intensified by Derek Parfit — to demonstrate how the search for static criteria of reidentification (physical or psychological) results in the fragmentation of the unity of the self. Initially, the research investigates the logical paradoxes and aporias resulting from the spatialization of time, demonstrating that memory, when considered as mere evidence of past events, fails to maintain identity in the face of qualitative change. In a second moment, Henri Bergson's philosophy is employed to ground an ontological alternative based on the concept of duration (durée). By moving from a metaphysics of substance to a metaphysics of becoming, we affirm that identity is not found in an immutable core, but in a dynamic and processual unity. By redefining memory as the automatic conservation of the past in the present, it is concluded that personality is an uninterrupted continuity of transformations. In this way, identity ceases to be a fixed state to be understood as the very flux of consciousness that forms and maintains itself over time. 2026-02-06T00:00:00Z