Did you get your shrink on?

[GuyinBA]

Headline story on the NYT website right now.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/19/w...nes-need-therapy-pull-up-a-couch.html?_r=1&hp

How many of you actually have one and why is this so do you think?

 

[earlyretirement]

I never saw a therapist before (including the 8+ years I lived in Buenos Aires). However, the article is correct that many many locals go and they don't think anything of it and freely will tell all of their friends.

I had over 40 employees and most of them saw therapists and they would openly talk about it. They would constantly ask to leave work to go to their appointments.

Personally I'd never want to hear about their therapy sessions but several times in the break room I'd get stuck hearing about how their sessions went and what their therapist recommended.

Not sure what it is about Buenos Aires where so many people have to go to a therapist but I've never lived in a city where more people went to a therapist.

 

[fifs2]

Headline story on the NYT website right now.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/19/w...nes-need-therapy-pull-up-a-couch.html?_r=1&hp

How many of you actually have one and why is this so do you think?

I personally have changed my views on therapy having lived in Bsas. I can personally attest to having visited a therapist here which is something I doubt I would have done had it not been so accessible and acceptable in Bsas. Like earlyretirement I have always had friends and employees share their therapy experiences - heck I even had one employee demand a higher salary increase because her therapist was costing her 450 pesos a month which baffled me at that time as all I saw was a mature grounded individual..who by the way now has a nice English boyfriend and doesnt go to therapy anymore..

Anyhow I digress...I went to find a therapist for what I considered to be a fear of flying...ironic as Id travelled to over 60 countries at this point but the fear had hit me at this point in Bsas and was affecting both business and personal travel. I had read an article on hypnosis and contacted the Institite Gubel which mentioned this treatment in its website and I wanted treatment in English. I was lucky enough to be assigned a great therapist - in all I saw him more or less weekly for a year. He was young and had a great sense of humor and often related his own stories to help give context to mine. His end diagnosis surprised me - anniversary syndrome - as my own father had died at 38 it seems as I was at that age I was projecting my fears of death and had selected flying as my fear of choice. We ended the treatment at 1 year more or less and I continue flying unrestricted today.

Basically I believe now in "point" therapy - ie the same idea as point training to address a specific need. One of my best friends was in therapy as she couldnt formulate positive long term relationships - she is now married to the most adorable guy and has her first child. Maybe all of this is pure fluke..but being in Bsas where the stigma is less made me open to try. I remain however cynical about anyone who does lifetime therapy ie who never graduates or completes their cycle as the only person who seems to benefit in that is the therapist..and that is quite common in Bsas acc. to my group of friends.

 

[earlyretirement]

Fifs2, I think it's great if a therapist helped you with a problem. I absolutely don't have anything against therapists or people that go to them.

I guess in some ways it's positive that people are so open to admit they go to therapy. I had friends in the USA that went to therapy but it was a deep dark secret that they didn't dare tell anyone, certainly not co-workers.

I do agree with you fifs2 that I'm not sure about how beneficial it is for people that do "lifetime therapy" but as you mention, that seems to be very common in Buenos Aires.

Sometimes it seems like people go just to go to therapy. Then other times I ponder if it's because of the stress that can be Buenos Aires.

I had a ton of female friends that were in their late 20's or 30's and not even close to getting married. I also had tons of male friends that were in their 30's to even late 30's that still had the Peter Pan syndrome and acted like they were still really young and no where near settling down and were really "mommied" with their mothers spoiling them and some still living at home in their 30's.

If I was living at home still in my 30's I guess I might need to go to therapy myself! LOL.

 

[jamila]

Being a clinical psychologist in the US I have a biased view. But I think that one of the things that stands out to me is that psychoanalysis is very popular in BsAs (compared to more cognitive-behavioral therapy that is popular in the states) The thing is that psychoanalysis is designed to be a long term process, not necessarily solution focused. I think people use it as a way to just to reflect on their life

 

[RachinBA]

my ex (argy) put himself in therapy. We worked in the same place and he started getting really weird, asking me stuff like "so what did you do in work tonight?" "Ummm, I worked?" "No I saw you leave the building with another person from work" we went to buy cigarettes and coffee but he made it a massive deal that i didnt tell him i went to the shop with another co-worker. Then he decided he didnt see shades of grey, onlyblack and white, so needed therapy. Then after nearly a yr and him spending christmas in my country I had to dump him cos he was so weird, jealous and intolerant of everything. Ok i'm offtrack but hurrah theres my story.

 

[Montauk_Project]

I´ve seen quite a few therapists here, but found the most helpful to be "family constellation" therapy, which is group based, in part because I found it to be fun and normally hated to go to individual therapy sessions. Most people here LOVE going to therapy. My husband goes once a week, he started paying 5 pesos per session during the crisis, and as his income improved has paid his therapist more. I think that has something to do with it--could you imagine a therapist in the US or Europe working on a sliding scale? (part of what they tell you when you start therapy here is that it will improve your earnings as you get rid of blockage, so offering a low starter price is kind of backing that up). For him, I´ve seen improvement in anger management (we now never fight) and also his allergies have gone away, since they are related to anger experienced as a child. It does take time though--since it is analisis, he wasn´t given exercises to manager anger, but rather they spent years finding out why he was angry and then naturally the anger went away.
I also dated an Argentine before I met my husband who did analysis three times a week. I think it was hurting more than helping. . .

 

[ba_2007]

I went to one for awhile to deal with some issues but as someone above mentioned they seemed to simply want me to continue coming and not really interested in fixing my issues or giving any sort of ending or closure. Almost like going to confession each week...nice but necessary? Not so much...at least for me. I ended it.