The Late Dr Theodor Dosuzkov

DEAR SIR,

Following on the letter of Dr R. Fischer about the late Dr Th. Dosuzkov, I would like to add a few reminiscences and point to some aspects of his work and activities for psychoanalysis in Prague.

As a neurologist of Russian origin, he was fully familiar with the neuro-physiological researches of I. P. Pavlov with whom he was in personal contact. In an extensive paper (1945) he showed that the basic concepts of the Pavlovian and the Freudian theories of the neuroses are moving on parallel lines mutually confirming each other from the physiological and the psychological points of view. Dosuzkov was all his life deeply attached to the Russian cultural tradition. He received his first introduction to psychoanalysis from the Russian psychiatrist and psychoanalyst N. J. Ossipov, who also settled in Prague in the twenties and was a senior lecturer at the University. He was in personal contact with Freud and his monograph on the 'Memories of Childhood of Tolstoi' was published in 1923 in the Internat. Psychoanal. Verlag. Ossipov founded in 1925 a Russian psychiatric circle in Prague; it was in fact a psychoanalytical study group. Dosuzkov was its active member.

In the early 30s when a number of senior analysts from Berlin and Vienna settled in Prague, Dosuzkov joined their circle and received his psychoanalytical training from Annie Reich, Otto Fenichel and Steff Bornstein. He conducted his psychoanalytical practice and training activities in the dark years of the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia and the Second World War. After the war, there was renewed lively interest in psychoanalysis among the young generation of doctors and psychologists. Under the leadership of Dosuzkov a study group was established with about 30 members, out of these several decided to undergo psychoanalytical training. Dosuzkov was appointed training analyst by Ernest Jones in 1946 and he devoted himself enthusiastically to his task as chairman of the Prague group. Regular meet