The recent article about our renewed contacts with the USSR [see Newsletter, 24/3] has stimulated much curiosity about Soviet psychoanalysis. A number of early Russian psychoanalysts, besides Luria and Wulff, deserve recognition. Since the 1960s, several publications about psychiatry and psychoanalysis in the USSR have been published in Europe (some in English) and the United States.
In 1893, Professor Vladimir M. Bekhterev returned from Wundt's laboratory in Leipzig and founded a laboratory for experimental psychology. He also treated patients by means of hypnosis and suggestion. One of those patients was the Wolf Man, who was treated during 1907-08. The Wolf Man was then analyzed in Odessa by Dr. Drosnés, who finally brought him to Freud (Lobner and Levitin, 1978).
According to Lobner and Levitin (Lobner informs the reader that Levitin is the pseudonym of a Russian sociologist who wrote 70 pages about the history of psychoanalysis in Russia), the beginning of psychoanalysis took place in Russia on March 13, 1908. 1908, the same year that Dr. Pavitsky read the first analytic paper in Petrograd, Dr. Osipov, an attending physician at the University Hospital in Moscow, returned from Bourghölzli to Moscow. He too had visited Freud, who reportedly was quite impressed with him. His chief, Professor Serbsky, encouraged Osipov to propagate psychoanalysis. Presently a circle of interested psychiatrists was formed and published papers in Korsakoff's journal
In 1909 Osipov started a new journal, The Psychotherapeutic Library, which published Russian translations of Freud, the first in any language (Elrod, 1989). It was also in 1909 that Wulff returned to Russia after an analysis with Abraham. In 1907 Freud had written to Jung about an “epidemic of psychoanalysis in Russia”— five Russians became members of the Vienna Society: Drosnés, Wulff, Osipov, Sabina Spielrein, and Tatjana Rosenthal. Rosenthal returned to Russia in 1922 and joined Drosnés in Petrograd; Spielrein left Switzerland in 1923. She held the first chair for psychoanalysis in Odessa.
On May 2, 1911, a Russian psychoanalytic society was formed. Among the members were Ermakov and Serbsky. With the onset of World War I and the October revolution, the growth of the analytic movement in Russia was perforce interrupted. Most medical analysts were drafted into the army; hunger and unrest were widespread (Russia lost 10 million people in the war).
In 1917, however, Trotsky urged Russian scientists, Pavlov among them, to study psychoanalysis without prejudice (Tögel, 1988). Lenin's attitude toward psychoanalysis is not well known, but he was tolerant of it. Otto Schmidt (polar explorer, astronomer) was a member of the Ministry of Education and from 1921 to 1924 was chief editor of the state publishing house where Freud's collected papers were published. Later Schmidt was vice president of the Russian Psychoanalytic Association. Lenin's wife, Nadesha Krupskaja, was also an important member of the Ministry of Education. She was one of the founders of the pedagogic section and provided funding for a government-sponsored psychoanalytic home for wayward children run by Vera Schmidt, Otto's wife. It was modeled after Aichhorn and Bernfeld. In addition to Schmidt, Schatski, and L. Blondski were important figures in both the Russian Psychoanalytic Society and the Ministry of Education.
My father, Professor Martin Pappenheim, spent 1920-21 in Russia as a member of an Austrian medical mission. He reported to the Vienna Society in October 1921 that a new group was forming in Moscow under P.A Ermikov, Professor Bernshtain, and Wulff.
In 1922, A.R. Luria formed a study group in Kazan, later the Kazan Psychoanalytic Society, with 15 members. Later Luria and many others moved to Moscow, where he met L. S. Vygotsky. Vygotsky and his numerous publications are extensively discussed by Elrod (1989). Vygotsky must have been an unusually versatile and charismatic scholar, much admired by Kurt Goldstein and J.S. Kasanin. Among his many pioneering projects was his work with blind, deaf, and mentally handicapped children and with schizophrenic patients.
In 1923, Moscow became the third training and treatment center, after Vienna and Berlin, to be recognized by the International. It included a section for the study of applied psychoanalysis: pedagogy, creativity and the arts, literature, and social psychology. Many papers were published, some later translated into German and English. According to Lobner and Levitin (1978), B. Bychowski (identical with our late member?) was, in 1923, the first to propose a study of psychoanalysis from a Marxist viewpoint. In 1925 others, including Luria, studied this issue. In 1925, two years after Lenin's death, attacks on Freud began to increase, although psychoanalysis was not prohibited until 1933, when the Kazan
Society was dissolved. Stalin's autonomous Marxism differed greatly from the European Social Democracy, particularly the so-called Austro-Marxism. In 1927, Wulff returned to Berlin and Vera Schmidt resigned, yet 20 members were still listed in 1930. Luria continued to insist that Freudianism and Marxism were mutually supportive. Nonetheless, after 1930 Luria and Vygotsky were no longer listed as members. Bekhterev's reflexology and Pavlov's nervism were not fully accepted either. In 1932, Luria disassociated himself from psychoanalysis, probably the only way he would be able to continue his important work in neuropathology. He did, however, write an historical review of psychoanalysis in 1940 for the Great Soviet Encyclopaedia (see Elrod, 1989, for the first German translation of this review). Psychoanalysis appears to have virtually disappeared from Russia in the mid-30s, although I never heard of book burning such as occurred in Germany. Finally, in 1951, Freudianism and all other schools of psychology were branded as anti-Pavlovists and ceased to exist. The only positive result of all this was the prohibition of lobotomy.
The climate changed in the 50s, after Stalin's death. Scientists were allowed to attend international meetings, for example the World Congress for Psychiatry in Montreal. However, they did not get visas for the United States. Freud's name reappeared, though often severely criticized, for instance in articles by E. V. Bassin, between 1961 and 1968 (extensively discussed by mentioned Lobner and Levitin, 1978; Pollock, 1982; and Elrod, 1989). I.S. Kon devoted a chapter to “The Personality Structure According to Freud” (see Lobner and Levitin; Pollock).
Not only did Russian scientists travel abroad, but Russia opened its borders to foreign scholars. For example, our colleague Isidore Ziferstein (Los Angeles) reports on his personal impressions of psychotherapy in the USSR in several papers written between 1962 and 1971. In the early 60s, he spent 13 months at the Bekhterev Psychoneurological Research Institute in Leningrad. He observed many psychotherapy sessions in the same room with patient and therapist and was often asked to participate. Going back to S. S. Korsakov and Bekhterev, a physiological viewpoint was stressed; various forms of physical therapy were used besides medication, stimulating the inhibiting substances missing in the CNS. (All patients were in the hospital.) Sociological factors, work, and group therapy were also important. A thorough medical and social history was taken. The physician had the power to actively change social conditions (jobs, housing, etc.) if they were considered harmful. A growing number of psychotherapists believed that psychic conflicts were the cause of neuroses (Ziferstein, 1961). The therapist was always active and informal, explains, questioning, encouraging. A positive relationship between patient and therapist (positive transference) was considered indispensable. The therapist was available at all times. Ziferstein was impressed by the genuine warmth and empathy of all the therapists, in spite of personal differences between them. Growing insight by the patient was desired. Ziferstein witnessed remarkable, lasting, positive results and gives several examples of case histories.
In group therapy, the emphasis was on education and reeducation (in workshops) and a mutual emotional support that endures beyond the duration of the therapy. To “elucidate the psychopathogenesis of the symptoms and personality problems” was considered important in individual and group therapy. The “collective philosophy” that permeated life in the Soviet Union seemed to be reflected in psychiatric methods. Hypnosis and suggestion were also used.
Psychoanalysis and psychosomatic concepts again became the subjects of discussion. The history of psychiatry, dealing with Adler, Jung, and Freud, became part of the medical curriculum. Freud's books were available in the libraries of big cities. Lobner and Levitin (1978) suspected that some “wild analysis” might be going on.
In 1979, an international symposium on the Unconscious took place in Trilissi, Georgia (USSR) with 1400 participants. Our colleague George Pollock participated and gave the plenary address. In 1982 he reported extensively on this (and far more on Lobner's paper than I have). (I want to thank Dr. Richards for drawing my attention to this important paper.)
Tögel (1989) believes that a new relationship to psychoanalysis has been in the making in recent years. His impression is borne out by a lengthy article written in June 1988 by Professor A. Belkin of Moscow, on the importance of the unconscious. It is included in Elrod's (1989) book.
Other psychoanalytic events have recently taken place in Eastern Europe. A well-attended psychoanalytic conference was held in Hungary in the fall of 1987 (only four Americans including the author attended). A congress on “Freud and Psychoanalysis” convened in Leipzig (German Dem. Republic) in the summer of 1989. At that time, Professor Helmut and Dr. Brigitte Thomä (Ulm, Fed. Rep. Germany) established the Balint Foundation for the scientific advancement of psychoanalysis.
We have reason to hope that psychoanalysis will be resurrected in many parts of the world.