Remembering Dr. Ramón Parres (1920 - 2009), Columbia Psychoanalitic Graduate and Founder of the Mexican Psychoanalitic Associatio
by David Lopez, MD
Dr. Ramón Parres was a Mexican psychoanalyst who completed his residency at the then Presbyterian Hospital, and graduated from the Columbia Psychoanalytic Center in 1952.
On his return to Mexico, Dr. Parres became the main psychiatrist of the American and British expats in Mexico. The Mexican painter Frida Kahlo famously mentioned him several times in her diary. Ramón Parres was a close friend of my father, who was also a psychoanalyst.
The many times I asked Ramon during social gatherings in Mexico why Frida Kahlo thanked him in her diary, he responded always with his wonderful characteristic chuckle, which conveyed great warmth, but also a sense of mischief. After the eighth or ninth time over a decade of asking him the same question and receiving the same response, I was startled when a female voice from behind me answered, “You know he’s never going to tell you." It was Amparo, his wife, and then she stated, “But I went to the Riveras’ many times, and met Frida, and can tell you about her."
Amparo, choosing her words as carefully as the lawyer she was, proceeded to tell me that she spent many afternoons at the gardens of the Rivera home, often sitting in one of their very decorated benches, sipping Mexican lemonade with chia seeds. The Riveras had a very friendly housekeeper who was constantly offering lemonade and roasted peanuts. Amparo never saw Diego, but she did say hello to Frida a few times. She only saw the monkeys and some of Frida’s exotic pets from afar, but often petted her two hairless Mexican ixquintle dogs. Even as a middle-aged woman, Frida seemed somewhat shy and immersed in her own thoughts. A real gift was hearing Frida sing, which she only seemed to do when she was alone. After walking through the main door, Amparo was directed to one of the benches by the friendly housesitter while the "Muchacho” was led to where he would be working. Amparo could listen Frida sing simple Mexican folk tunes for a few minutes before – I assume – her sessions began. Many of the decorations from the Parres’s house that I later knew were inspired by what Amparo observed during these visits. I have to assume that Ramón was applying the psychoanalytic technique that he had recently learned at our Center, while Amparo waited at Frida Kahlo’s gardens.
Ramón went on to have huge success in many areas of psychiatry and psychoanalysis in Mexico. He translated and wrote many articles and books. He was the first president of the Mexican Psychoanalytic Association (which he founded in 1957), and the first Director of its Institute (founded shortly after). Ramón was often the highlight of many of the professional meetings of several societies (psychiatric societies, child psychiatry societies, neurology and psychiatry societies, geriatric psychiatry societies, etc). He was psychoanalyst to many prominent personalities and mentor to many young physicians, including my wife and me. The psychoanalytic institute he founded now bears his name.
An idiosyncratic yearly event was the enormous Thanksgiving open-house at the Parres’s in which Ramón was always carving the turkeys, and serving his guests from behind a makeshift counter in his living room. Amparo would walk around with a tray of two choices of non-alcoholic drinks. One time I remember Amparo reaching close to whisper to us that they were already in their fourth turkey. The Parres were some of the very few Mexicans who celebrated this traditional “United-Statican holiday", as Ramón would call it. The Parres were both history and anthropology enthusiasts. I can still hear Ramón in my memories then explaining, “'American' and 'North American' refer to vast areas of land beyond the United States; you must certainly know, being a well-rounded and highly educated individual”.
The Thanksgiving affair was a simple one, and I had learned the rules since I was a child. One would enter the four-story glass house with cast-iron frame (as unusual as expected), leave the cookies – clearly labeled showing that it was from the Lopez’s – on a round table at the entrance, go to the living room to get our food from Ramón and our drink from Amparo, eat, and then leave. We were not to have small talk with the other guests, nor introduce ourselves, and certainly NEVER ask anyone how they knew Ramón. I do not remember ever seeing another psychiatrist or psychoanalyst at the Parres Thanksgiving open-house, since even as a child I knew all of them (it was always the usual cast of characters).
It took many years before it dawned on me that this was an unusual way to celebrate Thanksgiving. I then realized that Ramón had these rules, which he gave all his guests, because he invited his patients and former patients to his Thanksgiving open-house to thank THEM. I still was able to ask my father if my intuition was correct, and he told me that there was a rumor that this was the case, but that he was not sure. I wish I could call Ramón right now and ask him how his Thanksgiving tradition developed, and if he invited some or all of his patients, and how the decision was made; oh, so many questions! I am almost sure he would respond with his affectionate chuckle and then ask me about my kids.
When our Director at the Center, Susan Vaughan, asked me to write a biography of Ramón Parres, I envisioned the traditional formal, somber biography listing all of Ramón’s accomplishments, his publications, his associations, and other accolades. But Ramón was so much more to me, and to the people he touched during his life. We often spent our family vacations at his Acapulco apartment, and I could write a chapter about those vacations. Ramón was witness to our wedding, and we were able to have our wedding reception at the luxurious University Club of Mexico, thanks to his membership. He fed my wife and I scrambled eggs with “flowers from my garden” the day we went to his house to ask him for a letter of recommendation to apply to Columbia. My wife’s expression, who was still not used to the psychoanalysts' quirks when she heard Ramón tell us the menu, will forever be in my mind (the eggs were delicious, by the way). Every time I think of visiting Mexico, I have a fleeting thought that we must visit Ramón and Amparo. I think I have to visit them more often, even if it is only in my memories.
Seventy years ago, the remarkable physician Margaret Morgan Lawrence added to a lifetime of firsts by becoming the first Black candidate at our Center and the first Black psychoanalyst in America. This holiday season, one year following her death at the age of 105, the Center is pleased to announce the creation of the Margaret Morgan Lawrence, MD Psychoanalytic Training Scholarship, in memory and celebration of Dr. Lawrence's extraordinary accomplishments.