World: The Psychology of Carnaval

Analyzing Brazil's orgy at carnaval time is almost as much fun as participating in it. American Psychiatrist Dr. Reba Campbell feels that it offers Brazilians "a chance to live deep in fantasy," fulfilling everyone's "need to be important." A Brazilian psychiatrist, Dr. José Leme Lopes, sees it as a "kind of collective cathartic." Psychologist J. Wayne Gibson, an American living and working in Brazil as an industrial consultant and private therapist, has watched half a dozen carnavals. Last week he offered a TIME correspondent these observations on the festival's psychic roots and meaning:...