Uma psicobiografia de Elza Soares: reconhecimento de virtudes, forças pessoais e evidências de crescimento pós-traumático diante da violência de parceiro íntimo

Abstract

This dissertation investigates Post-Traumatic Growth (PTG) from the perspective of Positive Psychology, using the psychobiographical method to analyze the life and work of Brazilian singer Elza Soares. The aim is to understand how experiences of intimate partner violence, although deeply traumatic, can be re-signified as catalysts for human virtues such as resilience, courage, hope, and transcendence. The research adopts a qualitative approach structured around two complementary methodological axes. The diachronic axis reconstructs the artist's life trajectory over time, using the song "Lata d’Água na Cabeça" as a central reference, evoking her childhood and youth marked by deprivation and hardship. The synchronic axis, in turn, analyzes the song "Maria da Vila Matilde" in dialogue with the album "A Mulher do Fim do Mundo" ("The Woman at the End of the World"), interpreting it as a symbolic expression of denunciation and rupture with intimate partner violence, and situating it within a broader aesthetic and political context. The concept of the prototypical scene is employed to identify key moments of psychic rupture and subjective reorganization. The choice of Elza Soares as the focus of analysis is grounded in her trajectory, marked by multiple forms of violence: physical, psychological, sexual, and structural, and by how her vocal artistry emerged as a strategy for survival and an aesthetic expression of pain. This investigation contributes to the field of Positive Psychology by offering an in-depth study of how personal strengths and virtues can emerge from extreme suffering. Additionally, it provides a critical interpretation of intimate partner violence, contributing to the construction of knowledge that promotes social justice and highlights resilient trajectories of women who transcend adverse contexts through art, resistance, and the symbolic re-creation of their experiences.