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Argentina fact of the day
Argentina had 145 psychologists per 100,000 residents in a 2008 study by researchers Modesto Alonso and Paula Gago. That's far more than second-place Denmark, with 85, or ninth-place U.S. with 31, in a 2005 study by the World Health Organization.
The article is here and I thank Daniel Lippman for the pointer.
Posted by Tyler Cowen on October 16, 2009 at 02:23 PM in Data Source | Permalink
Comments
I lived in Buenos Aires for a while, and it was unbelievable how many people were in therapy or were psychologists themselves. There is even a part of palermo near plaza italia--i can't remember the name, though--that was really famous for being full of psychoanalysts and they called it palermo vienna or something like that.
At the same time, I wouldn't say that their definition of psychologist is as narrow as ours. I think some people who have four year degrees or masters degrees in psychology call themselves psychologists and practice some form of counseling. I don't know if the statistic accounted for this. I sort of doubt, though, that 145 per 100,000 argentines are practicing psychology as we normally think of it here in the states, with 11 years of schooling and high expenses. I also believe psychoanalysis is more prevalent than the schools practiced here.
Posted by: Lewis at Oct 16, 2009 3:29:21 PM
Lewis, I live in Buenos Aires (and yes, both my aunt and mother are psycholoysts). The place that you mean is called Villa Freud in the Palermo neighbourhood, near Plaza Salguero or something like that, not sure the name.
Here, there're two kinds of psychologysts, those who have a degree in psychology (the most), and those who have stuided medicine and then specialize in psychiatry. The main difference between them is that only those who have a degree in medicine are able to prescribe meds.
Posted by: Greg at Oct 16, 2009 4:05:21 PM
If Maradona was my team's soccer coach, Id be visiting the shrink too!
Posted by: skeptic at Oct 16, 2009 4:34:46 PM
Could there be a relationship between a nation’s psychology and the unwillingness to face up to root causes of recurrent economic crisis? Here are a few excerpts from a 1962 article in the Argentine news magazine Primera Plana (written by ‘Anonymous’):
“There are reliable indices to determine the incidence of neurosis in Buenos Aires: the undeniable success of publications on the subject [and] the healthy financial situation of psychoanalysts.”
“The city, and indeed the entire country, is gripped by a kind of paralysis that prevents us from assuming our responsibilities and at the same time forces us to turn to small pleasures that are quickly and easily satisfied... Unconsciously we deny problems and fall back on the hope for a paternal or authoritarian ‘hero’ who will emerge to solve our problems and get everything back on track. We are a nation with ‘no tomorrow’; we want everything today, we look for instant, irrational solutions. This all makes for the neurotic portrait of the Argentines that disturbs the psychologists… provide that they themselves are free of the generalized ‘denial’”.
The article continues in this vein speculating on the “id” and “superego” of the population, the “intense depressions” occasioned by repeated failures of charismatic father figures in politics, the resulting everyday economic problems of “worthless checks”, “nonpayments” and “a pervasive sense of mistrust”.
During a tense military standoff between two military factions “one of the soldiers anxiously asked the reporter: ‘Did you read the papers this morning?’ The reporter nodded yes. ‘Good. Then tell me, what’s today’s exchange rate on the dollar?’”
Posted by: michael g. heller at Oct 16, 2009 7:13:15 PM
All comments assume that there is a high demand for psychologists. But Tyler should know about supply and demand. Have you ever thought what happens when the private cost of producing something is very low? Do you know how low is the private cost of getting a professional degree in Argentina? Do you know why there are so many lawyers, engineers and physicians in relation to the population? Do you know when psychology became a popular career (if you read the original paper by Alonso and Gago you can learn that the number of students is quite high and most are at state universities which don't charge tuition and some still subsidize meals)? Do you know why people stop studying some careers like physics, chemistry, math?
Posted by: E. Barandiaran at Oct 16, 2009 8:03:22 PM
Lots of plastic surgeons in B.A., too.
Posted by: Steve Sailer at Oct 17, 2009 2:21:56 AM
Oft-quoted statistics have the rate of eating disorders in Argentina significantly surpassing the US.
Posted by: BT at Oct 17, 2009 11:41:06 AM
if you just focus on cities rather than countries and look at buenos aires the number of psychologists (and psychoanalysts in particular) is even more striking.
Posted by: pj at Oct 17, 2009 1:35:18 PM
Maybe that's why Roissy's friend, Roosh, finds Argentinian women so neurotic.
Posted by: Asher at Oct 18, 2009 4:52:38 PM
also worthy of note is that argentina is a vastly more traumatized country than Denmark and the USA. within living memory was a gruesome, represive military gov't that murdered it's own (w/many involved still free men), a disasterous military defeat and a game-changing, life defining economic collapse. Certainly this doesn't apply to Denmark and only just barely applies to the US
Posted by: farmer at Oct 19, 2009 8:38:23 AM
I have known a fair amount of Argentinians, and they do seem to be living in a different reality (To be fair this is more prevalent in "Porteños", than in people from the provinces).
Posted by: Henry at Oct 19, 2009 1:29:11 PM
