The recent book by Mariano Plotkin about the "psychoanalytical culture" in Argentina brings forth ample discussions about the role of psychoanalysis in the dynamics of different national societies within the scope of modern Western culture. The comparison between Argentina and Brazil is particularly rich, as also in the latter a significant diffusion of psychoanalysis took place during an homologous period. Plotkin presents a very complex and minute analysis of the phenomena in focus. His analysis reveals the main constitutive tensions of Argentine history during the XXth century, approaching the relationships with psychiatry, medicine, psychology, as well as with "Peronism" and lef-wing militancy. I emphasize the importance of his demonstration that "psychoanalytical culture" has become a "social language" in Argentine society, as well as the importance of his description of the diffusion of psychoanalysis by mass communication (which led to a wider social range of reception than in Brazil). I also emphasize the analytical relevance of his demonstration of the association between this diffusion and a generalized "scientism" of Argentine society, which is connected to the particular characteristics of that country's cultural "modernization".
Psychologization; Person; Psychoanalysis; Modernization; Argentina