Meeting of the Psychoanalytic Society of New England, East

October 28, 1991. PSYCHOANALYSIS IN CZECHOSLOVAKIA. Michael Sebek, Ph.D.

In the first of three precirculated papers, Dr. Sebek, the President of the Czechoslovakia Psychoanalytic Institute, discussed the history of the psychoanalytic movement in Czechoslovakia. Beginning in 1920, two groups co-existed, one in Prague around Dr. N. Ossipow from Russia and the other in eastern Slovakia guided by the Czech psychiatrist, Dr. Jar Stuchlík. In 1931 Emanuel Windholz, influenced by Stuchlík and trained in Berlin, began his psychoanalytic practice in Prague. In 1926 the Czech Study Group for Psychoanalysis was recognized by the IPA at the Marienbad Congress. O. Fenichel, A. Reich, and S. Bornstein lived in Prague in the 1930's and were active in the psychoanalytic training and education of the Czech Study Group until the beginning of the war. The Study Group ended with Hitler's occupation of Czechoslovakia. Some of its members emigrated, mostly to the United States; others perished in concentration camps. The only remaining survivor, Theodor Dosuzkov, trained by Fenichel and Reich, continued the psychoanalytic tradition during the war and re-established the Czech Study Group in 1946. Following the communist putsch, the group continued to function underground.

Dr. Sebek spoke of the vicissitudes of psychoanalysis under Stalinism. Pavlov's reflexology replaced psychoanalysis in the official journal. This period ended abruptly in 1958, and it was not until 1962 that some liberalization in Czechoslovakian society began, at which time some of Freud's works were published, as well as articles by several local analysts. Psychoanalysts continued to work underground, in spite of the edict against private practice. They were also employed in psychiatric clinics as psychologists and psychiatrists. Medical professionals knew about them while not officially acknowledging them. Dr. Sebek described in some detail the lives and work of three psychoanalysts under the Stalinist r