Argentina (International Dictionary of Psychoanalysis)

Argentina is unlike other Latin American countries in that its population is in large part the result of the massive European immigration that took place beginning in the late nineteenth century. Between the last decades of that century and with the global economic crisis of 1930, the country experienced increased prosperity. During that interval, the cultural climate was infused with a number of avant-garde intellectual currents.

Psychoanalysis in Argentina can be broken down into five periods: 1) the pre-institutional period, 2) the pioneer period, 3) the institutional period, 4) the crisis of the seventies, and 5) the present.

After 1922, and during the pre-institutional period, Spanish translations of the first volumes of Freud's complete works began to appear in Argentina, although translations in other languages were known. As early as 1910, however, Freud's ideas about infantile sexuality, free association, and psychoanalysis had been presented in Buenos Aires by the Chilean doctor Germán Greve (quoted by Freud in The History of the Psychoanalytic Movement) during the International Congress of Medicine and Hygiene, and the Peruvian Honorio Delgado had published articles on psychoanalysis in several prestigious medical journals.

In 1922 Enrique Mouchet, who had been professor of experimental psychology and physiology for two decades in the Department of Philosophy and Literature at the University of Buenos Aires, made psychoanalysis part of his syllabus, although he was critical of it. In 1923 the Spanish doctor Gonzalo Lafora gave a number of talks on psychoanalysis at the school of medicine. In February 1930, two recognized psychiatrists left for Vienna to visit Freud: Gregorio Bermann and Nerio Rojas, who would later publish a report of his meeting in the widely circulated daily La Nación. During the thirties, inexpensive editions of Stefan Zweig's biography of Freud were printed, as well as a ten-volume series of popularizations of Freud entitled, Freud Made Easy, carelessly edited (pseudonymously) and containing long passages from the Spanish translation of Freud's works.

The journal Critica regularly published a column on psychoanalysis devoted to the interpretation of dreams. In 1936 one of the most serious literary reviews in the country, Sur, paid homage to Freud; the review Psicoterapia also devoted an issue to the founder of psychoanalysis. A group of writers invited Freud to move to Argentina. Jorge Thenon, a self-taught psychoanalyst, received a letter from Freud, to whom he had sent his thesis, "Psicoterapia comparada y psicogénesis" [Comparative Psychotherapy and Psychogenesis], in which Freud encouraged him to continue his work for future publication in an international psychoanalytic review. The letter appeared in La Semana médica in 1933.

In 1938 the arrival of the Hungarian psychologist Béla Székely in Argentina helped to spread psychoanalytic ideas along with the use of tests, especially Rorschach tests. During that same decade, Enrique Pichon-Rivière and Arnaldo Rascovsky discovered Freud's work; they devoted themselves to its study and its clinical application. Pichon-Rivière formed a working group with Arminda and Frederico Aberastury; Rascovsky, with his wife Matilde Wencelblat, Luisa Gambier (later Luisa Alvarez de Toledo), Simon Wencelblat, Teodoro Shlossberg, Flora Scolni, Alberto Tallaferro, and Guillermo Ferrari Hardoy.

In 1939, two psychoanalysts from Europe, the Argentine Celes Cárcamo, member of the Paris Psychoanalytic Society, and the Spaniard Angel Garma, member of the German Psychoanalytic Association, joined Rascovksy's and Pichon-Rivière's groups. Celes Cárcamo had been a friend of Pichon-Rivière for years. Angel Garma, who had wanted to leave Spain for Argentina, had met Cárcamo in Paris. A decision was made to found a psychoanalytic association as soon as a sufficient number of analysts could be brought together. Luisa Alvarez de Toledo, Luis Rascovsky, Guillermo Ferrari Hardoy, and Alberto Tallaferro began analysis with Cárcamo, while Arnaldo Rascovsky, Enrique Pichon-Rivière, and Arminda Aberastury started with Garma. The patients who were analyzed by Cárcamo were supervised by Garma and vice versa.

On December 15, 1942, Cárcamo, Garma, Ferrari Hardoy, Pichon-Rivière, Rascovsky, and Marie Langer founded the Asociación Psicoanalítica Argentina (APA), which marked the debut of the institutional period. Marie Glas de Langer, who had sought refuge in Uruguay in 1938, settled in Buenos Aires in 1942. Analyzed by Richard Sterba, she had been trained at the Vienna Institute of Psychoanalysis but, to complete her clinical work, she underwent a control analysis with Celes Cárcamo. Shortly after it was founded, the association received the provisional approval of Ernest Jones, then president of the International Psychoanalytic Association (IPA). The APA was recognized as a member society of the IPA at the Zurich Congress, in August 1949.

In July 1943, the first issue of the Revista de psicoanálisis appeared, and that same year the publisher Biblioteca de Psicoanálisis went into operation. This began a process of rapid expansion of the discipline both inside and outside Argentina. Therapists from throughout Latin America arrived eager for training, there were many foreign visitors, and Argentinian analysts traveled to present their work in other countries throughout the Americas and Europe. In 1953, the association had more than 68 members in all categories.

Angel Garma, who was analyzed by Theodor Reik and undertook his control analysis with Otto Fenichel, had an interest in a number of fields and in all of them he left his personal mark. He discussed Freud's theory of hallucinations in 1931, generalized the hypothesis of the traumatic genesis of dreams, and promoted psychoanalytic research and treatment in the field of psychosomatic disturbances. Celes Cárcamo was analyzed by Paul Schiff and had his control analysis with Rudolph Loewenstein and Charles Odier. He was interested in philosophy, religion, art, and especially therapy, and through his personal prestige and integrity helped introduce psychoanalysis to different social and professional milieus. During his early years, his writings primarily focused on psychoanalytic technique and psychosomatics.

The analysis of psychosis became a focus of interest through the impetus of Enrique Pichon-Rivière, along with Arnaldo Rascovsky's research on mania. Pichon-Rivière emphasized the "single illness" theory and proposed a psychopathology that centered on a central pathogenic kernel or "fundamental depressive situation." Rascovsky, in his work on fetal psychism, introduced the hypothesis of a prenatal maniacal position, prior to the introduction of the paranoid-schizoid position by Melanie Klein.

Arminda Aberastury and Elisabeth Goode de Garma specialized in the psychoanalysis of children and adolescents, basing their work on the theoretical contributions of Melanie Klein. Increasing demand and theoretical interest in this type of therapy helped stimulate the growth of group psychoanalysis. The work of Marie Langer, León Grinberg, and Emilio Rodrigué stands out in this field. The personality and the ideas of these pioneers affected the tenor of their theoretical work. There was a strong Freudian influence, of course, but Otto Fenichel, Hermann Nunberg, Wilhelm Reich, Paul Federn, and Melanie Klein were read as well.

Other important work was done by Marie Langer on femininity and by Luisa Alvarez de Toledo in her research on "association" and "interpretation," which contributed to the interest in language, a subject later taken up by David Liberman. Heinrich Racker made significant contributions to the study of the instrumental value of countertransference (concomitant with the work of Paula Heimann in Great Britain).

The tentative return to democracy in 1958, which coincided with one of the most brilliant moments in the contemporary history of the University of Buenos Aires, provided a favorable framework for the activity of new generations of psychoanalysts. It was during this period that there arose the personalities and ideas that would, to a large extent, define the identify of what came to be known as the "Argentinian school." Alongside the work of Rascovsky, Garma, Pichon-Rivière, and Racker, the names of León and Rebeca Grin-berg, Willy and Madeleine Baranger, Jorge Mom, Jorge García Badaracco, Mauricio Abadi, Edgardo Rolla, Fidias Cesio, José Bleger, David Liberman, Joel Zac, Horacio Etchegoyen, Salomón Resnik, Luis Chiozza, Isidoro Berenstein, and many others gained local and international recognition.

The dominant theoretical trends revolved around English authors, primarily Melanie Klein and her closest collaborators: Paula Heimann, Hanna Segal, Susan Isaacs, and later Donald Meltzer, Wilfred Bion, and Herbert Rosenfeld. When Klein's influence reached its peak, there were four dominant trends: dogmatic Kleinians, critical Kleinians (Baranger), those who deepened and extended her work (Grinberg, Bleger, Liberman, Etchegoyen, Zac), and those who responded to her theories with a refreshing (non-Lacanian) return to Freud.

During this period, the first non-IPA schools of psychoanalysis appeared, founded by members of the APA, to meet the growing demand for training and the limited opportunities for admission provided by the Association. Another important event that occurred at this time was the introduction of psychoanalysis in hospitals throughout Argentina. Also, during this ten-year period, a school of psychology was created in Buenos Aires. Psychoanalysis played a major role in the curriculum and a number of qualified psychoanalysts were on the staff. The school produced a large number of clinical psychologists. After 1986 they were able to join the APA once it removed the restriction that required practitioners of psychotherapy to be medical doctors.

The seventies were a period of increased tension. Changes around the world had repercussions in the country generally and on the psychoanalytic movement in particular. Passionate debates within the psychoanalytic community prevented any kind of consistent intellectual progress. During this confused period, a number of well-known analysts (Marie Langer, Diego and Gilou García Reynose, among others) left the APA and founded the Plataforma and Documento movements. Other forms of psychotherapy competed for the market of available patients, whose numbers continued to increase rapidly. This was somewhat muted by the economic inflation and the increasing social and individual malaise. Antagonisms among psychoanalysts concerning institutional attitudes and psychoanalytic training grew steadily, culminating in the schism that would divide the Argentine Psychoanalytic Association and give birth, in 1977, to the Asociación Psicoanalítica de Buenos Aires (APDEBA), officially recognized the same year by the IPA during its Congress in Jerusalem.

It was at this time that Jacques Lacan's ideas entered the sphere of Argentinian psychoanalysis. These ideas rallied legions of partisans, not only because of their inherent interest but because of the anti-institutional orientation that Lacan embodied within the range of the then current warring ideological positions. Lacan's followers were soon clamoring for positions in hospitals, universities, and on the pages of the leading reviews. The particular language used by Lacanians made it difficult to confront them or even exchange ideas on the basis of an alternate terminology, which effectively curtailed the traditional intellectual pluralism that had been the norm within psychoanalytic organizations.

At the time there were five psychoanalytic institutions affiliated with the IPA: two in Buenos Aires (APA and APDEBA) and three in the cities of Mendoza, Córdoba, and Rosario. Unlike the previous periods, psychoanalysis now had to struggle for its identity and avoid being diluted in a complex and confusing "world of psych." A number of non-IPA teaching facilities were established, but the level of teaching was inconsistent. In spite of the changing, and unfavorable, cultural context, which contrasted sharply with the climate of the previous periods, the output of the majority of psychoanalysts was considerable, the local associations remained consistently productive, with an abundance of publications of high quality, and Lacanian organizations were highly active, demonstrating the persistent vitality of the discipline in the country.

Psychoanalysis in Argentina was influenced by global trends. Willy Baranger, initially influenced by the ideas of Enrique Pichon-Rivière, engaged in a critical examination of key concepts in psychoanalysis, from Melanie Klein to Jacques Lacan. Because of the lucidity of his approach, Baranger's work became a key focus of psychoanalytic thought in Argentina, and has remained valid for the second generation of practitioners.

An indigenous line of thought focused on method soon developed in Argentina. It was based on the technical work of Heinrich Racker and its greatest representative was Horacio Etchegoyen, who perfected it through his many innovative contributions to the theory of psychoanalytic technique and his marked interest in the epistemological aspects of the discipline. Another local current came into prominence during the eighties and favored a diversification of practice in the psychoanalytic approach to group, family, and couples therapy. There was considerable interest in the social aspects of psychoanalysis, which led to the development of more committed positions among psychoanalysts and a psychoanalytic approach to social phenomena of violence. Developments in the field of psychosis, the diversification of applied psychoanalysis, and work in the field of psychosomatics reflect the range of contributions of contemporary psychoanalysis in Argentina.

ROBERTO DORIA-MEDINA JR. SAMUEL ARBISER MOIS KIJAK