THE TUBE : Ayuda and Comfort

“Aqui entre nos” has to be the most Spartan show on broadcast television. For a full half hour, all you see is a woman sitting at a desk, concerned and attentive, offering advice to unseen callers who are pouring their hearts out. It’s as though a Spanish-language radio show accidentally, suddenly, found itself on TV.

But its starkness is mesmerizing, the setting a reflection of the naked needs of the callers: Tiffany is 16. She only speaks Spanish. She has a baby. Her husband beats her up, uses drugs and refuses to get treatment. Her family has disowned her. She has, it seems, nowhere to turn--nowhere but psychologist Ana Nogales and “Aqui entre nos” --”Here Between Us” --her afternoon show on KWHY, Channel 22.

“Tiffany,” says Nogales gently but firmly, looking at the television cameras. “You can’t continue living with your husband, subjecting yourself to this abuse. . . . Call a shelter. Never think there isn’t a way out.”

On today’s show, Nogales will also counsel Diana, who has an excessively jealous husband; Olga, who is in love with a married man, and Maria, who has been abused by her stepfather. No subject is off limits.

More than 100 people call each day, but only about a dozen get on the air. “There is an incredible need in the Hispanic community to have a place to ask,” says Nogales, who came to Los Angeles from Argentina, earned a Ph.D at UC San Diego and has offices in L.A. and Santa Ana. “In general, due to government budget cuts, people now have less access to mental health professionals, and the problem is greater when they need help in Spanish. So Spanish speakers have nowhere to go, especially in emergency cases. Mine is an open line to help people in Spanish, and it’s the only one.”

“In Latin America,” Nogales continues, “they have places to go for help, and, most importantly, they have their family. Here they have nothing. And in me, they find a friend they can trust.”