Buenos Aires, the Argentine capital known for its tango bars, has another claim to fame: it may well be the world’s capital of psychoanalysis.
For every 120 inhabitants in this bustling metropolis, a psychologist is on hand to help struggling individuals make it through tough times — or simply lend an attentive ear to accounts of daily life’s travails.
“We portenos like to talk more than we like to listen,” Marcelo Peluffo, one such disciple of Sigmund Freud and Jacques Marie Emilie Lacan told reporters, referring to the city’s 3 million residents. “That must be why someone who works to listen is successful.”
Andres Rascovsky, president of the Argentine Psychoanalytic Association (APA), one of the world’s largest such organization with 1,200 members, attributes the penchant for such services to immigrant nostalgia similar to that expressed on the dance floor.
“Psychoanalysis is so much a part of Buenos Aires because the city makes you suffer,” the 61-year-old said in an interview in his practice — near a neighborhood dubbed “Villa Freud” due to its abundance of analysts.
The popularity of therapy is also reflected by what sells well on television, where 10 shows currently deal with the subject.
“The public could relate to a series called In Therapy, which just ended,” said Rascovsky, whose office walls are adorned with deer antlers, seen as symbols of wisdom and connections to the spiritual world.
On stage, productions that have drawn full houses include Knock, Knock — a piece about six people who suffer from obsessive-compulsive disorder — and the comedy The Last Session of Freud. The musical Almost Normal about a child’s death and its impact on the family has also been a hit.
“These productions do very well because people identify with something you don’t see every day, but which is latent in all of,” Florencia Otero, 22, one of the stars of Almost Normal told reporters as her colleagues agreed in unison.
Jealousy, desire and infidelity are the key themes of the bestselling book Encounters by psychologist Gabriel Rolon that topped sales in Buenos Aires bookstores. Rolon has popularized psychoanalysis with other chart-topping works such as The Sufferers and Couch Stories.
Country-wide, about 50,000 psychologists compete for business, which amounts to an average of one practitioner for every 690 residents — three times more than in the US. Those wanting to pursue the profession can choose from 200 schools in Buenos Aires alone.
To illustrate how mainstream therapy sessions have become, Rascovsky — whose father Arnaldo was a pioneer of psychoanalysis — tells an anecdote about a Mexican couple in town for a conference who were astonished when a taxi driver asked them who had been elected APA president.
Indeed, it is difficult to find people who have not sought the services of a therapist, with even those with modest salaries can get sessions partially reimbursed by social security health plans.
Vera Czmerinski, a 40-year-old actress and journalist, said she has spent two decades trying to find herself in sessions.
“I use therapy to know how far I can go without getting hurt by life,” she said.
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Kehinde Sanni spends his days smoothing out dents and repainting scratched bumpers in a modest autobody shop in Lagos. He has never left Nigeria, yet he speaks glowingly of Burkina Faso military leader Ibrahim Traore. “Nigeria needs someone like Ibrahim Traore of Burkina Faso. He is doing well for his country,” Sanni said. His admiration is shaped by a steady stream of viral videos, memes and social media posts — many misleading or outright false — portraying Traore as a fearless reformer who defied Western powers and reclaimed his country’s dignity. The Burkinabe strongman swept into power following a coup in September 2022
‘BODIES EVERYWHERE’: The incident occurred at a Filipino festival celebrating an anti-colonial leader, with the driver described as a ‘lone suspect’ known to police Canadian police arrested a man on Saturday after a car plowed into a street party in the western Canadian city of Vancouver, killing a number of people. Authorities said the incident happened shortly after 8pm in Vancouver’s Sunset on Fraser neighborhood as members of the Filipino community gathered to celebrate Lapu Lapu Day. The festival, which commemorates a Filipino anti-colonial leader from the 16th century, falls this year on the weekend before Canada’s election. A 30-year-old local man was arrested at the scene, Vancouver police wrote on X. The driver was a “lone suspect” known to police, a police spokesperson told journalists at the
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has unveiled a new naval destroyer, claiming it as a significant advancement toward his goal of expanding the operational range and preemptive strike capabilities of his nuclear-armed military, state media said yesterday. North Korea’s state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said Kim attended the launching ceremony for the 5,000-tonne warship on Friday at the western port of Nampo. Kim framed the arms buildup as a response to perceived threats from the US and its allies in Asia, who have been expanding joint military exercises amid rising tensions over the North’s nuclear program. He added that the acquisition
RSS