Irene Cairo Chiarandini interviewed Leon Grinberg on the day after his presentation, “Memory Accuses: Psychoanalysis Under Totalitarian Regimes,” at the third meeting of the International Association for the History of Psychoanalysis in July 1990.
IC: What prompted you to write this paper?
LG: The IAHP, specifically Joseph Sandler, invited me to write about what happened to psychoanalysts and to psychoanalysis under military dictatorships, particularly in Latin America. The request was for a factual paper, not a theoretical one. As you know, that is the main interest of the IAHP. Of course, they are interested in analytic theory, but essentially they seek to recover facts, to evoke images, experiences of individual analysts, to revise if necessary, to demythify, to seek the truth about analysts and about their institutions.
What happened in Latin America was terrible. Analysts suffered very directly. What the IAHP wanted was a witness account from somebody who knew firsthand what had happened—to evoke the facts as they were experienced.
For me, the experience of writing this paper was very difficult, since I had been immersed in the very sociopolitical situation about which I wrote. Writing the paper evoked for me all the anxieties we had lived through in that climate. I knew firsthand some of the people involved. They were colleagues and friends of mine. It was very important to bring all this to this Congress. I think we all have to be immensely grateful to Allain de Mijolla—for this is what this association that he organized is about; to know better what happens with analysts and institutions so that we can begin to know the reality of analysts' lives, to better approximate the real picture of those lives.
IC: Your answer opens up many areas of interest. We have in this Congress heard a wide spectrum of reactions to the dilemma faced by analysts, particularly in crisis situations: how to reconcile the neutrality imposed on us by clinical practice, with the requirement to take a public posture visa-vis political systems in crisis. We have heard from the very controversial (psychoanalysis in the service of revolution!) to the more conventional. Yet there are many sectors where analysts look askance at any political involvement, either individually or as a group. Where do you stand in regard to these issues?
LG: You are quite correct that there are crisis situations that create special demands. Some are “limit conditions,” “extreme conditions” that the analyst must face and where it is very hard to generalize. Obviously a priority for the analyst is always to use his expertise, his analytic skill, to help the patient comprehend the patient's inner world.
I believe, however, that the analyst can never be removed from the external world. Sometimes he may feel the need to isolate himself in a form of “operative splitting,” to maintain the analytic setting. In ideal conditions, analysis, of course, can be wonderfully effective, but we were talking about conditions less than ideal—crisis conditions, in fact, life or death conditions. I quoted my friend Isidoro Berenstein in my paper. In some situations that are “unthinkable,” analysis becomes impossible. External reality can become so threatening; the threat of death, of torture is ever-present. It becomes impossible to free associate, to think freely.
When we left Argentina, analysis had become a “monotheme.” Patients one after another talked about friends, relatives, who had disappeared, who had been kidnapped. However, a fortunate circumstance occurred for us. I was invited to teach at the University of Madrid and accepted the offer primarily to distance ourselves from what was happening in Argentina. Indeed, from Madrid, we saw clearly the risks we would run if we went back; risk to our own lives or at best to the quality of our work. We felt helpless to assist our patients, although we had been doing it in whatever measure it was possible. Only later could the extent to which analytic work was possible and adequate under such conditions be evaluated.
IC: You are indeed in an exceptional position to comment on the differences between analysis in Europe and in Argentina. Will you reflect on those differences?
LG: I knew European analysis long before my emigration to Spain. Although I was born and raised and received my medical and psychoanalytic education in Buenos Aires—and had married an Argentine analyst (my wife, Rebecca, is an adult and child analyst and was Director of the Psychoanalytic Institute in Madrid)—I had traveled extensively and was Associate Secretary and then the first Vice President for Latin America for the IPA. Since 1955, when I first attended a meeting of the International Association in Geneva, I have regularly attended international meetings. I knew particularly well British and French analysis. I used to go to England for supervisions and attended meetings there.
Of course, in Spain, throughout the years of the Franco regime, there was very little development of psychoanalysis. We went to Spain to teach. There were very few analysts in Madrid. Some of them had been trained in France, others in Switzerland. Our presence was very important in Madrid. They appreciated the experience we brought. They knew us from our papers and books; I had conducted supervisions and had taught many courses. We had been working for a long time to strengthen psychoanalysis in Madrid.
The situation was very different in Argentina, where analysis had had a most extraordinary development. But this, of course, is already well known.
“Some people label me as “Kleinian” or “Bionian” I do not recognize myself in those labels. Indeed, to the Kleinians I am not a Kleinian; and to the ego psychologists, I am definitely not one of them.”
IC: In some programs they would not even be mentioned, let alone be well known.
LG: One cannot be critical without being knowledgeable. That's why I believe congresses are so important! Of course, it is important not just to attend but to listen! Sometimes people attend, but they don't really listen to ideas that are different from theirs. They say what they think but do not incorporate anything new, and therefore they don't modify old ideas. It is very important to be open to revising one's own ideas. I am not afraid to revise ideas I maintained in the past. I would be alarmed if I stopped changing. It would mean that a curtain has been drawn in my mind.
I have written in articles and in books that I no longer think this way or that way. For instance, my thoughts on projective counter-identification have changed. I used to think of it as a purely pathological mechanism. Now I believe it is also a regressive mechanism we analysts have in our countertransference to get in touch with the most profound layers of the unconscious; to share, to experience, to live with the patient his unconscious fantasy. I am happy that other people have now begun to talk about this concept. They may not call it that, but it is the same concept.
IC: You realize that the way you talk about the use of the countertransference is not universally accepted in the United States. The works of Paula Heimann, of Marion Milner, of Heinrich Racker, your own, on the use of countertransference, are not commonly read. You are known as a great teacher. How do you see the problems of teaching, of training in psychoanalytic institutes? We are primarily formed by our own analysts, then by our supervisors and our courses, and ultimately by our patients. How do you see the solution to the problem of dogmatism in psychoanalytic training?
LG: That is a very important and very difficult question because many factors affect institutions: the need to maintain family traditions, unresolved transferences. We are all children and grandchildren of analysts. If we don't resolve our transference neuroses (which are never totally resolved but, we hope, are sufficiently resolved), then it seems to us sacrilegious to contradict the ideas of our analytic parents or grandparents, our teachers. We are humans with human problems. We might hope that because we are analysts we would have fewer of those human problems or at least could resolve them as analysts. But, unfortunately, that is not the case. What we think individually is transformed in the group, whether the group is a seminar or a general meeting of members. One of the things I learned from Bion is that there exist not only in the individual, but also in the group, sectors that function on a psychotic level, on a regressive level. According to Bion, there is marked regression in human groups.
IC: Perhaps still not well enough known in the States. How would you account for those profound differences in the development of analysis? How does one explain that the same Diaspora that took Marie Langer to Buenos Aires and, for instance, Edith Jacobson to the States produced such different analytic currents?
LG: Well, first let me add that besides being very familiar with European analysis, I have studied ego psychology very profoundly and have conducted seminars on ego psychology in Argentina as well as in Spain. In Argentina we study all of Freud's work chronologically and very intensively. Some people label me as “Kleinian” or “Bionian.” I do not recognize myself in those labels. Indeed, to the Kleinians I am not a Kleinian; and to the ego psychologists, I am definitely not one of them. Perhaps, lately, I have been closer to Bion because he has allowed me a new access to the unconscious. Bion, is, in my opinion, one of the psychoanalytic authors who has best understood Freud. I think of myself simply as a psychoanalyst and am happy to have been able to integrate many different approaches. I have been able to integrate Freud, Klein, and Bion in a way that is very useful to me.
The people who emigrated unquestionably had a profound influence on the development of psychoanalysis. In the United States, especially, were Hartmann, Kris, and Loewenstein. In Argentina, there were three distinct, very important currents; those of Angel Garma, Marie Langer, and Celes Carcamo. Garma was
analyzed in Germany by Theodore Reik. One of his best papers was written in Germany. Carcamo brought the influence of French analysis, and Marie Langer that of Vienna. She had been an analysand of Sterba.
In the beginning, those currents could fertilize each other because, paradoxically, during Peron's regime there was no permissible expression of our work that could be carried out too publicly. Peron attacked intellectuals. Do you remember the slogan the Peronists sang? “Yes to sneakers! No to books!” At the time, in contrast to the late 50s and the 60s, when psychoanalysis expanded into the universities and all intellectual centers, the public expansion of psychoanalysis was not allowed. But in those earlier days, the work was very intense within the institution itself. We enjoyed a sort of “splendid isolation.” To this was added the arrival of new ideals in the persons of Pichon Riviere, Arminda Aberastury and Heinrich Racker. With the freedom that those pioneers offered us, we were able to incorporate all these new ideas with relative little dogmatism. What was happening was in contrast to what often occurs in other areas where perhaps only one line is followed either by the country or even by a particular region within the country. I have expanded my thoughts on this subject in my paper, “New Ideas, Conflict and Evolution” in the 50th anniversary issue of the IJPA. Freud wrote against dogmatism. He believed there should be access to new ideas.
IC: That leads us to the issue of how and how much a particular culture affects analytic development and is, in turn, affected by it. It seems to me that the intellectual atmosphere that prevails in a particular circle will color the scientific development. For instance, “adaptation” is an important aspect of the American culture. That must have bearing on why the development of psychoanalytic ideas on ego adaptation occurred in the United States and not somewhere else.
LG: As Ortega said, “I am myself and my circumstances.” Yes, the culture penetrates scientific thought. But you know, the potential for dogmatism exists everywhere—in Argentina, in England. You know, Bion was not accepted by the Kleinians; he was almost unknown! I'll tell you a story. When I first began to read Bion, I was fascinated and went to England to find someone who could teach me his work. I was led to Elliot Jaques. Together with other Argentinian colleagues, I went to see Jaques, who offered us a seminar. At this seminar, many times I had to correct his understanding of Bion. He was extremely honest, and, at one point he said, “How can all of you ask me to teach this seminar? You are all more knowledgeable about Bion than I am!” In Argentina, I was studying Bion's work with a group of young analysts at a time when a great number of analysts were saying that he was psychotic, should not be studied. It is painful to see such dogmatism! I suppose that all that this says is that we analysts are human, we have difficulty accepting new ideas, we resist. We have “adapted” to our subculture. But we should dare to be flexible.
I have had some discussions in New York where I have felt at an advantage because I have studied ego psychology. But some of the people who argued with me did not know Klein or Bion at all well. So how could they be prepared to argue?
Many years ago, we had institutional problems in Argentina. Then we had a Latin American symposium on “Relations between Analysts” and talked about the isolation of our work, about our need to know, about our avid need to know, our curiosity, which is directed not only at the patient but also to the outside. We still feel excluded; we experience issues of rivalry, envy, of power. How to solve these problems? I think the way we tried to solve them then—by holding meetings, by talking about the issues. I am not such an optimist, such a Utopian as to think that one meeting—or many meetings—can solve all that, but if we tried systematically to study what happens within institutions, if we talked truthfully, sincerely, as analysts, then I believe we could make a start.
I believe what Freud said, that we receive the projections of our patients, and they are as unhealthy as the radiation of “x-rays.” Sometimes we discharge those projections on our colleagues. Our work is unhealthy. It threatens our physical and mental balance. We have to take every precaution to preserve ourselves. It is very important that we seek the truth about our actions, so we can understand what is happening to us and find the remedy.