Freud in the Pampas: The Emergence and Development of a Psychoanalytic Culture in Argentina

Abstract

With wit and erudition, Mariano Plotkin explores the history of the diffusion and reception of psychoanalysis in twentieth-century Argentina. The author sets for himself a daunting intellectual task: “Only a multidimensional approach that integrates into the narrative the complex of conditions that facilitated the phenomenon can explain why and how a psychoanalytic culture emerged” (p. 8). Notwithstanding the challenge of sifting through ever-changing interpretations of Freud, Marx, and Lacan—a challenge complicated still further by a confusing alphabet soup of organizations and splinter organizations—the author succeeds in his purpose. Furthermore, because Plotkin studies psychoanalysis as both a therapy and an “interpretative system,” this work transcends the confines of medical history.Psychoanalysis, which is an integral part of the cultural life of Buenos Aires, arrived in Argentina through visiting foreign psychiatrists, but met a cold response in the first decades of the twentieth century. By the 1920s, however, the decline of degeneracy theory and positivism, overcrowding in state run hospitals, and a climate of political consensus, permitted psychoanalysis to find a place in the medical community. Soon thereafter, through pediatricians and educators, as well as the popular press and artists, psychoanalytic ideas began to work their way into the porteño middle class.Psychoanalysis entered Argentine psychiatric hospitals in the 1930s through the work of the Mental Hygiene League, an organization that mixed anti-immigrant attitudes with progressive ideas about de-stigmatizing mental illness. The League’s early success in expanding the therapeutic tools available to doctors was shattered by the politicization of professional activity under Juan Perón. In the two decades following Perón’s fall, progressive psychiatrists, many of whom were influenced by psychoanalytic methods, enjoyed surprising levels of support from a string of military governments. Instrumental in the reformation of psychiatry was Mauricio Goldenberg, who developed the country’s first psychiatric clinic in a general hospital. The clinic, which attracted a wide range of mental health practitioners eager to expand their clinical training outside of large state-run asylums, is representative of a wide range of innovative and well-publicized programs that mental health professionals developed during this period.In addition to tracing the labyrinthine paths of its acceptance, Plotkin explains the growing enthusiasm of porteños for psychoanalysis. First, it was seen as a scientific method of dealing with a multiplicity of social problems, from psychosis in the asylums to the ordinary problems of child rearing. Second, because many porteños saw psychoanalysis as science, they embraced it as a tool of modernization. But while psychoanalysis was embraced for its modernity, Plotkin notes that the conservative approach taken by its practitioners, especially when questions of family and sexuality were concerned, facilitated its acceptance by middle-class society.Plotkin also maps the role of the popular press in circulating psychoanalytic ideas. The weekly news publication, Primera Plana, for example, propagated psychoanalysis within a broader project of endorsing cultural and economic modernization. The 1962 article “Are we all neurotic?” exemplified the reach and importance of a psychoanalytic framework. Echoing early concerns over degeneration and immigration, the article noted that “neurosis was ‘the disease of the moment,’ the price to be paid for the modernization the magazine promoted” (p. 121).Politics is never far from the center of Plotkin’s narrative, especially after the fall of Perón. The author examines, for example, how both laypersons and professionals employed psychoanalytic paradigms to interpret the increasingly bizarre and unsettling course of Argentine politics in the 1960s and 1970s. By the 1970s, the polarization of Argentine society was exercising a pernicious influence on psychoanalysis. Prewar consensus was a distant memory and psychoanalytic groups began to splinter, as membership divided over both professional and political issues. Meanwhile, the marriage of psychoanalysis to marxist theory led to a growing critique of both traditional psychiatry and political repression and economic injustice. As state terrorism came into full force with the coup of 1976, however, psychoanalysis provided a relatively safe retreat into the private realm, as the public sphere became increasingly dangerous and unpredictable.This book is essential to an understanding of Argentina’s middle-class urban culture and history as well as how politics affected the professional and personal lives of everyday Argentines. Although psychoanalysis came to Argentina from abroad, it has developed as a unique part of the national culture, myth, and consciousness. For this reason, coupled with Plotkin’s unique approach and thorough examination of archival and living sources, the book deserves a wide audience, including Argentine specialists, and intellectual and medical historians.