The Rebirth of Psychoanalysis in Russia

The decade of the 1990s has witnessed an energetic revival of interest in psychoanalysis in Russia. Even prior to the breakup of the Soviet Union, the relaxation of restrictions under glasnost had permitted the republication of translations of Freud, with discussions about analytic theory—even treatment along psychodynamic lines—once again attracting attention. However, it is only in the last several years that formal programs of study among self-selected groups of Russian professionals, mostly in collaboration with western colleagues, have engaged the Russian mental health and academic communities. Interest in this movement lies first in the formal and longterm process of training new psychoanalysts and psychodynamically oriented therapists in a society where an educational structure, models for identification, and a culturally embedded psychoanalytic tradition were absent for three generations, and further, in the opportunity to observe how a society long hostile (in its official structures) to psychoanalysis confronts these changes. Although it is premature to draw conclusions regarding the public's reaction, the work of the practitioners themselves, their rhetoric, and their organizational efforts offer clues to the manner in which this by-product of democratic change is received and integrated. First, it is pertinent to provide a schematic review of the history of analysis in Russia.

Russian analysts were active in the spread of psychoanalysis in the early part of the century. For example, the first translation of Freud into a foreign language was the Russian edition of The Interpretation of Dreams in 1904. The contribution of Russian analysts is documented by the positive reception of the journal Psychotherapy, which began publication in 1910 under the leadership of Nikolai Osipov and Nikolai Vyrubov. It soon became the editorial nucleus of the field in Russia, publishing not only original Russian psychoanalytic studies and reviews, but works in translation as