Apart from creating his own clinical method, Freire has also contributed to literature on the philosophy of pleasure with his concession-less defence of pleasure as a vital necessity. Cléo e Daniel was his first novel, which became a best-seller amongst students in the seventies, selling more than 200,000 copies as a newspaper-book, a daring editorial option at that time. Without a doubt, it was this potent mixture of literature and Freire's own choice of lifestyle which led to the creation of Soma.

Os ingredientes? Não é difícil encontrá-los, claros e diretos, por exemplo nos ensaios "Utopia e Paixão", "Sem Tesão Não Há Solução" e "Ame e dê Vexame": a ideologia do prazer como arma revolucionária de combate ao sacrifício imposto pelas sociedades autoritárias e hierárquicas. O tesão passou a ser a bandeira de luta de Roberto Freire desde seu rompimento com a Psicanálise e com a Psiquiatria tradicional, na década de 1960. Formado em Medicina, Roberto trabalhou em ambulatórios psiquiátricos e fez formação psicanálitica. Afastou-se por divergências ideológicas, achava-as equivocadas e adaptadoras ao sistema social vigente, e aventurou-se pelo jornalismo, teatro e literatura. Como escritor encontrou sua liberdade criativa e reencontrou sua paixão pela Psicologia. No final da década de 60, volta a clinicar e a pesquisar um método terapêutico mais próximo de sua ideologia de vida, o Anarchism no cotidiano.

Today, after more than thirty years working with Soma in various cities in the country, Roberto Freire supervises the work of the somatherapists of the Brancaleone Collective and continues writing. He is due to publish his autobiography Eu é um outro in the next few months as well as new volumes of his series for children João Pão, as aventuras de um menor abandonado.

Brancaleone was created in 1992 as a collective dedicated to the research, development and practice of Soma. Currently, the headquarters are in Rio de Janeiro and is made up of the somatherapists João da Mata, Jorge Goia and Vera Schroeder and of trainee therapists Ana Lopes, Fábio Veronesi and Marcelo Leal:

João da Mata was born in 1968 in Recife, Pernambuco where he began training in Medicine in the eighties. He became a somatherapist at the beginning of the nineties with Roberto Freire. João coordinates therapy groups in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro where he lives. Together with Roberto Freire, he published SOMA - vol.3 - Body to Body a resumé of the theory and practice of Soma (available in English on this site). In 2001, he published A liberdade do corpo in which he explores the utilization of capoeira angola as an instrument of personal and social transformation within groups of Somatherapy. João is also a photographer and a video documentary maker. He received an award in the festival Brasilidades, promoted by the Museum of Modern Art / Rio de Janeiro for his film 'O Brasil de Walter Firmo'. He also publishes articles in the periodical 'Libertárias', produced by NU-SOL (Núcleo de Sociabilidade Libertária - PUC - São Paulo).

Jorge Goia was born in 1963 and has been a practicing somatherapist since completing his training in 1993 with Roberto Freire. He coordinates groups in Florianópolis, Porto Alegre and Rio de Janeiro where he lives. He graduated in Social Communication from the University of Londrina (Paraná). As a journalist, he worked between 1986 and 1991, editing the news programme "Paraná Norte". He has also been reporter and editor of the TV station Coroados (Londrina), TV Verdes Mares (Fortaleza) and TV Manchete (Fortaleza).

In 2001 completed his master's degree in Social Psychology from the State of Rio de Janeiro University (UERJ). His thesis was "Conversations with an anarchist therapist - Roberto Freire and Soma", in which he sought to document the research hitherto undertaken in the practice of Soma and relating this to contemporary French philosophy, mainly the work of Michel Onfray, Michel Foucoult, Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari. He is currently doing a PhD in Social Psychology in UERJ, also about Somatherapy. He also writes for libertarian journals and is a photographer and videomaker.

Vera Schroeder was born in 1973 and graduated in Social Communication, specialising in Marketing at the Escola Superior de Propaganda e Marketing (ESPM) in São Paulo. In 1995, she began her training with Roberto Freire and currently coordinates groups in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro where she lives. She worked in Borrifos Artistic Production, producing debates, musical and theatrical shows in cultural centres, universities and schools.

From this experience she set up her own production team, "Fulô - Cultural and educational production". She has developed various projects to bring back into focus Popular Brazilian Culture, with special attention on Ariano Suassuna, Paulo Moura and the guitarist Paulo Freire. In September 2002, "Fulô" will produce a series of debates in the Cultural Centre of the Bank of Brazil (CCBB). The series has been entitled "A Política da Palavra" (The Politics of the Word) and will welcome such writers and thinkers as Roberto Freire, Margareth Rago, Edson Passetti, Carlos Heitor Cony and Ferreira Gullar, amongst others. She has been published in the Canadian magazine "Adbusters" and "Letralivre" in Rio.