A Derailed Dialogue: Unexpected Difficulties in the Psychoanalytic Work with Patients From East Germany

November 1989 changed our lives in Berlin. Until then, we had not really come into contact with the other part of Germany; at most we were confronted with arbitrary actions and the rigid exercise of power when visiting the Wall or traveling in or through the other part of Germany, but now the East Germans were coming to us. The city, the street atmosphere, everything was changing. Now enthusiasm, joy, and relief over the reunion are being replaced by disappointment and disillusionment with the unification process. The potential for violence and hostility was increasing.

In our frequent discussions we Berlin psychoanalysts are attempting to understand what is taking place individually and collectively. As active and concerned participants we are in the middle of this process of conflict. Both our everyday experience and our specific experience dealing with our patients present fields of observation. As psychoanalysis did not exist in the GDR (East Germany), either as a science or a treatment method, and psychotherapy was also limited, East Berlin patients rushed to us West Berlin psychoanalysts with a rather idealistic expectation of the preliminary contact, from which a psychoanalytical working process rarely developed. Only very recently does it seem to be changing. Concerning these developments I would like to share some of my psychoanalytical reflections, made while treating both children and adults. I will base my thoughts on observations that I was able to make when parents from the GDR introduced their children to me, as here the very particular difficulties