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This page is an AI-assisted Turkish summary of the study presented at the 26th World Congress of Psychiatry. The study belongs to the presenting authors; please refer to the original source when citing it.

Frida Kahlo: Mirror and Wound, Trauma, Loneliness, and Compassion in Psychiatry

Frida kahlo: the mirror and the wound-trauma, loneliness, and compassion in psychiatry

Kahlo's self-portraits exemplify how the psychological processing of trauma can take the form of a visual language, inviting psychiatry to reflect on the story behind every symptom and the healing role of creative expression.

The lecture explores the life and work of Frida Kahlo (1907–1954), one of the most influential artists of the twentieth century, who transformed personal suffering into a visual language of identity, pain, and resilience. Born in Mexico City, Kahlo sustained severe physical trauma in a serious bus accident at the age of eighteen, resulting in multiple fractures and lifelong complications. She began painting during prolonged periods of immobility, frequently using her own image as both a subject and a symbolic mirror. Her self-portraits reveal not only physical pain but also psychological experiences such as loneliness, relational loss, and the search for meaning. The presentation adopts the perspective of the Psychopathology of Expression, following the European tradition described by Robert Volmat, which examines how artistic creation makes the symbolic organization of subjective experience visible. Rather than proposing a retrospective psychiatric diagnosis, it focuses on how Kahlo's visual language expresses the psychological processing of trauma. To understand the relationship between trauma and self-representation, it proposes a framework comprising the mirror, representing introspection, and the wound, symbolizing bodily injury and emotional pain. From this perspective, her works become expressive testimony in which suffering is transformed into symbolic images that convey complex affective states. For psychiatry, Kahlo's work invites reflection on compassion and narrative identity, reminding clinicians that there is a story behind every symptom and that creative expression can serve as a bridge between trauma and psychological integration.

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