The Gaucho and the Divan

Argentina's involvement--or obsession--with psychoanalysis is more than a running theme in its image in the outside world, the impetus behind the name of the Villa Freud neighborhood, and the subject of two brilliantly-named books by Mariano Plotkin (Argentina on the Couch and Freud in the Pampas). Is such a hyper-analyzed culture the sign of self-centeredness and ego-love? A reaction to the stress of constant economic crises? A reaction to repeated swings between dictatorship and democracy? The unavoidable lot of self-proclaimed Europeans stuck at the end of the world? What one decides on that front probably says more about the watcher than the watched, but one thing is for sure: There are plenty of shrinks living La Vida Parrilla.

How many, however, was not clear to me until now. A story in today's La Nacion reveals the results of a study conducted by one Modesto Alonso. According to Alonso's numbers, there are 56,000 licensed psychologists in Argentina, a rise of 50% in the last five years That breaks down to 154 for every 100,000 inhabitants, or the incredible figure of one for every 650 people. Of those, 80% are women.

In context, how does that compare? If true, it's amazing. The U.S. has 45 per 100,000, Mexico 98, and Brazil 87. And in woefully unanalyzed Ecuador, South America's center of the unexamined life? There are but 1,500 shrinks, or 13 per 100,000 people.