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AMERICAS

Do Argentines Need Therapy? Pull Up a

Couch
By SIMON ROMERO AUG. 18, 2012

BUENOS AIRES The cafe, just north of a leafy district affectionately

nicknamed Villa Freud, was almost empty. Roberto lvarez sipped his espresso,
furrowed his brow and began ticking off the names of psychologists he had seen
over the past decade. He stopped counting only when he noticed that he was
running short of fingers.

Let me tell you something about us Argentines, said Mr. lvarez, a 51-
year-old construction worker, after a tangent on Jacques Lacan, the famous
French psychoanalyst who sometimes conducted sessions with patients in
taxicabs. When it comes to choosing a psychologist, we are like women
searching for the perfect perfume. We try a bit of this and a bit of that before
eventually arriving at the right fit.

Indeed, Argentines often manage a smile upon hearing that psychoanalysis

has been on the wane in the United States and other countries, rivaled by
treatments that offer shorter-term and often cheaper results than years invested
in sessions of soul-searching. Even as Argentines grapple with high inflation and
an economic slowdown, many seem to know precisely what they want (at least
in one area of their lives): psychoanalysis, and plenty of it.

The number of practicing psychologists in Argentina has been surging, to

196 per 100,000 people last year, according to a study by Modesto Alonso, a
psychologist and researcher, from 145 per 100,000 people in 2008. That
compares with about 27 psychologists per 100,000 people in the United States,
according to the American Psychological Association.

Those numbers make Argentina a country still brooding over its economic
decline from a century ago a world leader, at least when it comes to peoples
broad willingness to bare their souls.

There is no taboo here about saying that you see a professional two or
three times a week, said Tiziana Fenochietto, 29, a psychiatrist doing her
residency at the Torcuato de Alvear Hospital for Psychiatric Emergencies, a
public institution. On the contrary, said Ms. Fenochietto, who has been in
therapy herself for the past eight years, it is chic.

One need not wander far in this city to get a grip on the resilient obsession
with neuroses of various stripes. The name Villa Freud is a nod not only to the
Austrian founding father of psychoanalysis, but also to the number of
psychologists who ply their trade in the buildings along the elegant streets
around Plaza Gemes, in northern Buenos Aires.

A short cab ride away, in the theater district along Avenida Corrientes, lines
form each night where the local adaptations of two hit plays have opened side by
side: Freuds Last Session, currently an imagined debate between Sigmund
Freud and C. S. Lewis, and Toc Toc, about obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Slip into many bookstores here, and tomes abound written by Argentines
about the psychological ills that plague people, and their cures. Malele
Penchanskys Universal History of Hysteria and Alejandro Dagfals Between
Paris and Buenos Aires: The Invention of the Psychologist are among the
offerings. A new prizewinning Argentine comic book, Repairer of Dreams,
even blends psychoanalysis into the tale of a dystopian city called Polenia.

Psychoanalysis is not just for Argentinas moneyed classes, with some

psychoanalysts in the state medical system offering patients free sessions. And
while some private health plans do not pay for psychoanalysis, insurance
programs for some unionized workers cover dozens of therapy sessions a year.

We say no to charity and yes to equal opportunity, said Adriana Abeles,

president and founder of the Fields of Psychoanalysis Foundation, which carries
out research, trains students of psychoanalysis and provides therapy. When
patients cannot afford to pay, they can volunteer in exchange for their sessions,
doing jobs like repairing furniture, cooking or painting walls.

The countrys growing supply of psychologists also means that consumers

have considerable bargaining power. While some of the top analysts here charge
the equivalent of hundreds of dollars per session, many work on a sliding scale
in accordance with their patients incomes, offering sessions for as little as $15
an hour.

Despite the continued boom in psychoanalysis, Argentina is not impervious

to global treatment trends. Techniques like cognitive behavior therapy, which
claim to offer shorter-term results, have gained ground here, and some health
insurance plans frown upon the costs involved in drawn-out psychoanalytic
counseling. Drug treatments have also made inroads, and some therapists in
Argentina have expanded online offerings, turning to technologies like Skype.

But Andrs Raskovsky, president of the Argentine Psychoanalytic

Association, recently asserted that psychoanalysis had little risk of extinction in
Argentina since seeing a psychologist twice a week is still viewed as being
affordable for much of the population.

Theories abound as to why hang-ups, and the professional class that treats
them, seem to flourish here.

Martn, the main character in Sidewalls, a critically acclaimed 2011

romantic comedy about life in the shoe box apartments of Buenos Aires, offers
this theory: Apathy, depression, suicide, neuroses, panic attacks, obesity, fear
of heights, muscular tension, insecurity, hypochondria, sedentary behavior all
are the fault of architects and construction entrepreneurs. (Martn, of course,
in a scene worthy of a Woody Allen film, professes to suffer from all of them
except for suicide, and rarely leaves his high-rise building except to attend
therapy.)

Others look to Argentinas past for explanations, and not just the sadness
bred by the faded glory of a nation that was once wealthier than many European
ones.

The country, some say, was long vulnerable to melancholia, or at least an

acceptance of sharing those troubles with a patient listener. With its history of
immigration, largely from Europe, Argentina has a tradition of drawing
inspiration from European intellectual trends, including the rise of Freudian
psychology a century ago. Spanish immigrants who sought opportunities away
from the fascist rule of Francisco Franco were pivotal in establishing
psychoanalysis in the 1940s as a respected profession in Argentina. Nowadays,
some of the top psychoanalysts here are Jewish, most of them descendants of
European Jews.

Others have sought to tie the appeal of psychoanalysis to the nations music,
like the tango, which can plumb decidedly dark themes. (There is even
something here called psychotango, which explores the use of psychoanalytic
thinking and dance as a tool for self-transformation.)

But Mariano Ben Plotkin, author of Freud in the Pampas, a book about
the emergence of psychoanalysis in Argentina, said the reasons were much more
complex. Sure, we have the tango, but the Portuguese have the fado, said Mr.
Plotkin, referring to the mournful music of Portugal, a country with fewer
psychologists per capita.

Instead, Mr. Plotkin, whose own parents sent him to a psychoanalyst

several times a week when he was a child, attributes the rise of psychoanalysis in
Argentina partly to its reception by a large, relatively well-educated middle class
in the 1960s.

Despite the rise of rival treatments, Mr. Plotkin said he remained sanguine
about what he called the hegemonic position of psychoanalysis in Argentinas
psychological community. After all, ordinary Argentines readily employ
psychological terms that in other countries would be the preserve of psychology
majors, and can hold forth on the difference of Freudian and Jungian methods.

Respect for psychoanalysis extends to other realms as well. It is embedded

in various state institutions; parents of children at public schools, upon being
asked to attend meetings regarding their childs behavior, for instance, are
sometimes surprised to learn that one of first discussions is with a
psychoanalyst employed by the school system.

And in a sign of its wide acceptance, President Cristina Fernndez de

Kirchner and her cabinet chief took time out in April to meet with leaders of the
World Psychoanalysis Association, which was convening then in Buenos Aires.

Opening a newspaper or cultural supplement here often feels like leafing

through decades-old editions of The New Yorker, when cartoons were drenched
 in psychoanalytic jargon.

Diego Sehinkman, a psychologist who writes a weekly column for the

newspaper La Nacin in which he describes imaginary therapy sessions with
politicians across the spectrum, said: We are fascinated in Argentina with
peering into the suffering of people in power. Especially those who have made
us suffer a bit.

Emily Schmall contributed reporting.

A version of this article appears in print on August 19, 2012, on Page A1 of the New York edition with the
headline: Do Argentines Need Therapy? Pull Up a Couch.

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