Psychoanalysis in Argentina

Abstract

Psychoanalysis in Argentina was established as a profession since the foundation of the Argentine Psychoanalytic Association (1942), where the perspective of Melanie Klein initially predominated. Before that institutional event, Freud´s theories were received in a more far-reaching and less homogeneous intellectual and medical field. At the beginning of the century, Freud´s first readers in Argentina were strongly influenced by French culture and science. Although the first mention of Freud´s work corresponds to a Chilean doctor, Germán Greve, intellectuals such as José Ingenieros or Enrique Mouchet carried out their first readings from a critical perspective. In the 1950s and 1960s, consolidated psychoanalytic institutional spaces had been developed in Buenos Aires, while in the other provinces there was still the gestation of the institutional field that would allow the specific training of psychoanalysts. In two of the most important cities, Córdoba and Rosario, psychoanalysis was adopted by a group of intellectuals, physicians and judges linked to the University Reform. Deodoro Roca, Jorge Orgaz, Saúl Taborda, Juan Filloy and Gregorio Bermann adopted the theories of the Viennese language from different perspectives. In Rosario, the figure of Pizarro Crespo, not only integrates Freud´s ideas into a psychosomatic perspective, but, in an unsuspected way, constitutes the first reference to Jacques Lacan´s work in Argentina. Towards the 1960s the creation of undergraduate psychology programs was marked by an important presence of teachers linked to psychoanalysis. Around the same time, a new paradigm was introduced into psychoanalysis: lacanism. Within the framework of the reception of structuralism, readings of Lois Althusser and the first readings of Lacan´s teaching began to spread. This new paradigm had a decisive impact on different professional fields and different social sciences in the country. If Oscar Masotta became one of the main disseminators of Lacan in Buenos Aires, Raúl Sciarreta and Rafael Paz were more relevant in other provinces of the country, particularly in the cities of Córdoba, Rosario and Tucumán, cities where the institutionalization of psychoanalysis was strengthened from the 1970s onwards.