Recession Shrinks Use of Therapists

The people of Buenos Aires have long considered this the Latin capital of neurotics, a city where weekly sessions on the shrink’s couch were as much a part of middle-class life as summer vacations at the beach or weekend homes on the Pampas.

But now, with Argentina teetering on financial collapse, many people can no longer afford therapy--just when they need it most, some psychiatrists say. The number of patients has dropped so sharply that many therapists are struggling to keep their practices going.

Four years of rising joblessness and poverty have exacted a heavy psychological toll on Argentines, underscored this month by two days of riots and supermarket looting that drove the president from office.

La bronca--Argentine Spanish for anger--is back, say many Portenos, as the residents of Buenos Aires are known.

The recession has flayed an already fragile national psyche wounded by years of brutal military dictatorship and economic chaos of the late 1980s. Personal bankruptcies have skyrocketed, bank accounts have been partially frozen, and jobs are disappearing in a country that for decades saw itself as a First World enclave in the developing world.

“The average Argentine has always been dark, brooding and pessimistic, but it has been years since the pessimism has been this sharp and widespread,” said Ana Kohn, a psychologist who lives and works in the Palermo neighborhood, dubbed “Villa Freud” for its high concentration of analysts.

On a recent evening, dozens of people showed up for a free therapy session led by psychologists at a suburban church. Many complained that Argentina had taken a turn for the worse after undergoing seismic economic changes in the 1990s, when then-President Carlos Menem launched a privatization plan to please the International Monetary Fund.

The extensive sell-off of government enterprises failed to generate the wider economic benefits that many Argentines like former chemist Silvana Bixio had hoped for.

“I was fired from my job three years ago as part of what they called corporate restructuring,” she told the group. “And I haven’t been able to find a job since. Can you believe a person with a chemistry degree and years of lab experience can’t find a job today? It’s depressing, and I’m depressed.”

As Argentina’s crisis has dragged on, private-sector wages have fallen 20% over the last year. State workers’ salaries have dropped 13%.

The therapists leading the discussion suggested people seek outlets for their angst. They encouraged people to exercise, spend time with friends--and, in extreme cases, rely on medication.

Even the experts are suffering, often because cash-strapped clients are turning to less expensive consultations at state-run hospitals or the group sessions at churches.

Psychiatrist Claudia Bergman had to close her practice two years ago and now works as a secretary. “Within months, I was in the job lines that so many of my clients had talked to me about,” she said.

Kohn, the psychologist, said she has lowered her fee for an hourlong session from $40 to $20, but is still having a hard time keeping clients.

“We now almost need as much counseling as our patients,” she said.