A Conversation with Evelyne Albrecht Schwaber

JWB: How did the trip come about?

EAS: The program committee, chaired by Peter Wegner, of the division of psychoanalysis of the University of Tubingen, part of the Tubingen-Stuttgart Psychoanalytic Institute, invited me to present my views there. One of my papers, on reconstruction, had been translated into German for a volume on the psychoanalytic attitude, so there was some added familiarity with my views.

JWB: How did you structure your presentations?

EAS: I lectured at each of the institutes I visited and led a clinical case conference at several of them. I also did some privately arranged supervisory consultations. Prior to the lectures, I had sent Dr. Wegner my papers on interpretation and on countertransference. He had them translated into German and then precirculated them to each of the participating institutes, which then selected the one I was asked to present. I received the translations well in advance of my visit. Drs. Axel and Peter Hoffer graciously reviewed them and made helpful suggestions. Since I know some German, that helped a bit too.

JWB: Were the discussions in English or German?

EAS: They were a combination—largely in English, with as much German as I could manage. I encouraged people to ask questions in German if they wished. I tried to understand as much as I could and asked for help when I needed it. Generally, I responded in English with a German phrase added here and there. Over the course of the two weeks, my German language skills improved, and I more comfortably read sections of my papers in German. (The audience had copies of the translations in hand.)

JWB: What was your impression of the exchange? What elements of your presentations appeared to capture people's interest? Were there surprises?

EAS: In general, people were fairly well prepared by having acquainted themselves with my views on listening. Occasionally, they were not as familiar with the ideas, so we had to begin from a different starting point. Some of the questions they asked were similar to those asked of me elsewhere, for example, “We agree that we should not impose our agenda or assumptions; what beyond that are you telling us?” Gradually, as we discussed different clinical material, I could illustrate how, even unwittingly, we seem to make our own assumptions—which often go unquestioned—as though we regard them as “the truth.”

JWB: What were the environmental conditions like in which the institutes were functioning and people were practicing?

EAS: Although my impressions are not systematically drawn, my sense is that psychoanalysis is thriving. There is no scarcity of analytic patients, either privately or for training. There is financial subsidy from government and private health insurance. I don't know exactly how the numbers break down, but there is a large proportion of nonmedical people in the psychoanalytic community—from my personal contact, nearly 50%.

JWB: From a variety of disciplines?

EAS: Yes, but now they are mostly psychologists. Until 1976, a university degree was the only prerequisite for analytic training, so that a number of theologians, sociologists, teachers, nurses, and others became analysts. There was a feeling that the requirements had become too loose. The regulations then changed, and only psychologists and physicians can now apply for training. Physicians who are not psychiatrists must have at least one year of psychiatric experience. All these restrictions are again under discussion, and the question of opening training to a wider group of disciplines is much debated.

JWB: It does not sound as though German psychoanalysts feel as much under siege as do analysts in this country.

EAS: The singular feeling I had of their being under siege had to do with the impact of the history of the German past. This legacy of the Nazi era always was with them, not only what happened to the Jews and to Jewish psychoanalysts, but what happened to the psychoanalytic movement itself—a complex and painful history in its own right. The Goering Institute in Berlin was open during that period, controlled as part of the Nazi machinery. Though some identified themselves as psychoanalysts or psychotherapists, they radically altered the curriculum and greatly censored the psychoanalytic vocabulary in accord with Nazi demands. After the war, the effort was made to return to the international psychoanalytic community and to change the training so that it met those standards. The question of individual complicity with the Nazi apparatus during the war, however, created enormous difficulty and complexity in the post-war reorganization of psychoanalysis in Germany.

JWB: How open were the people you met in discussing that legacy?

EAS: They spoke a great deal of the effects of that legacy on themselves, on their work as analysts, and on the issues confronting their patients, many of whom are children of survivors or children of former Nazis. I would say the analysts were quite open. While I was in Germany, there was a meeting of German and Israeli analysts taking place in Israel focusing on the psychological problems of the second generation. Meetings among Israeli and German analysts occur with some frequency.

As an outgrowth of this trip, I have gained a heightened awareness of the centrality of the psychological impact of the Nazi legacy on the Germans. They live always with the sense that they are viewed as suspect. There is a continuing feeling of having to atone, to confront, to deal with the guilt for which their parents or their grandparents bore responsibility. It is not that they set out to remind me they were or are victims too, but somehow I ended up thinking about them in this way—how hard it must be to not be able to take pride in one's legacy. I recently came upon a book entitled Born Guilty by a Viennese Jew named Peter Sichrovsky, who was born after the war. The book sensitively portrays some of these individual dilemmas.

JWB: Did you notice any regional differences in attitudes or in awareness?

EAS: I was not in any place long enough to be able to judge that fairly. But I did have a sense of difference in Berlin. Here it was harder to deny the past, even if one tried, even for a day. A divided city, with East Berlin separated from the West, which meant from the analytic community as well—the past glares all over. To travel to the East, I still needed a passport, and the currency was different. There the city had not been rebuilt, and one saw many bombed-out buildings. It was fortuitous to have been invited at that particular historical moment in German history. The events of impending reunification had not been foreseen when I originally accepted the invitation. It was a very special time. The issues evoked by the impending reunification were paramount; these included the questions of its concomitant impact on psychoanalysis and on Jewish concerns, as well as on the fabric of the society in general. The Berliners with whom I spoke were understandably the most positive about unification, having lived in a divided city and long separated from friends and family. But analysts from other cities were worried that unification was proceeding at too rapid a pace without time to prepare for and integrate the profound changes it would bring. Some told me that they had already seen a rise of articulated anti-Semitism evidenced by what patients were now feeling freer to say in their analysts' offices.

Berlin has the oldest analytic institute, now in a different building from the one that housed their 50th-anniversary celebration in 1970. (I was given a copy of the book commemorating that event.) The walls of the institute, named the Karl-Abraham Institut, display the photos of many of the giants around Freud; there is a stark and powerful sense of the beginning of analytic history here. With reunification, analysis too will return to the East.

Throughout, there were many monuments, many concrete remembrances of Jewish history. In Frankfurt, for example, there is a very large and beautiful Jewish museum, built by the city, detailing centuries of Jewish life in the city. While I was glad to see such carefully planned educational efforts, I had some concern about a possible romanticization of the Jews, as though they were a people who once were. That made me a bit uncomfortable. Nonetheless, I was moved by the number of people who seemed to have a focal interest, some even centering their life's work, on aspects of Jewish history or culture. The sense of the enormity of the Nazi legacy, particularly for Germans who were born during or after the war, repeatedly confronted me.

JWB: Did you find people willing to talk about their family backgrounds and experiences?

EAS: They did so rather consistently, perhaps especially because I am Jewish. Of course, I spoke with a select group, likely to be reflective—analysts, their spouses, and their friends. Just to become an analyst meant that you were entering a profession with many Jewish members and one that was reviled by the Nazis. That is already a large statement—to move in such a direction.

JWB: Would you share some of the things people told you?

EAS: Yes, I have their permission to do that. One woman spoke of her father, who was a judge during the war. His assignment was to determine which women were to be sterilized. As she told me, these were originally designated to be women with inherited mental illness, the “diagnosis” of which was decreed by a court founded in 1934. But the designation became increasingly abused to include all those declared as “of inferior value.” Her father was killed early in the war, and she recalled her feelings of relief that he would not be doing more of this evil work. She also remembered a time during the war when, as a young child, she was walking with her mother and saw an old man sitting on a park bench. He was wearing a yellow star. She knew him well and wanted to go over to him, but her mother tugged her away, without explanation. This childhood memory returned years later, in analysis, perhaps expressed in the transference, for her analyst was an older Jewish man.

Another woman told of her physician father, who had been morally opposed to the Nazi regime but who had six young children whom he wanted to protect. For this reason, he accepted his assignment to treat the wounded German soldiers at a nearby hospital. He spent the rest of his years, until his death, tormented by having cooperated. His wife tried to comfort him, she told him he had had to look out for his family, but he could not be consoled for having gone along with the system.

I sent this colleague a copy of my description, and she wrote, amplifying my recollections, “As you describe my father's problems, they were as dreadful as you understood, but I think it was more a matter of shame than of ‘Real-Schuld’ [real guilt]. My father had been a municipal medical officer, assigned to perform and organize the sterilization, according to the dreadful law against ‘lebensunwertes Leben’ [those decreed unworthy to live]. After many perturbing discussions with Catholic clergy—even the famous Cardinal von Galen encouraged him to accept this task ‘in order to prevent the worse,’ namely, the wicked performance of this law by a convinced Nazi—my father decided that his conscience did not allow him to do it. As a consequence, he was swapped out of his office. He fell ill and was without

JWB: Paradoxically, hypervaluing the intellect leads to the subversion of the intellect.

EAS: That's true. The recognition of this inclination, or an interest in what prompts it, may have been a factor drawing them toward my focus on affect and state expressions as central areas of data about what may lie in the heart. Some colleagues also commented on the sense of certainty about knowing the “Truth,” which seems to have pervaded German society. They expressed a feeling of continued danger in this attitude of assigning to truth a capital T. They felt that the clinical position I take in questioning our own sense of certainty, in highlighting our tendency to make assumptions about the patient's experience, may have broader ramifications and perhaps also had something to do with their interest in having me present my views. (At a recent lecture tour in Rome, the political ramifications of this position about “certainty” were also remarked upon by Italian colleagues.)

I am reminded of the comments I cited by the novelist Milan Kundera, writing when he was in exile from a totalitarian regime:“… all over the world people nowadays prefer to judge rather than to understand, to answer rather than to ask, so that the voice of the novel can hardly be heard over the noisy foolishness of human certainties.” I was glad to hear their reflections about this, and I learned from them.

In all, the visit was a powerful and moving experience for me—personally and professionally. I felt grateful for the thoughtful and gracious way the entire visit was organized and for the rich opportunity for dialogue, friendship, and learning.

[Note: This interview was reviewed for accuracy by representatives in each of the institutes visited. The following are some further responses.]

Almuth Selschopp, of the Munich Institute, wrote, “What struck me most of all in your interview—underlining exactly what you mentioned—is your observations of our attitude toward our Nazi past. I had never felt an urge to work on this subject, but since your visit feel inspired to do so and have begun work with colleagues on a comparison of ideal development since Nazizeit between West Germany and Ex-DDR people.”

Johann Michael Rotmann, of the Freiburg Institute, wrote, “True, those people who think and who are somewhat able to bear what happened in the German history and what Germans have done live and have to live with the fact of the horrors and crimes committed. Twenty five years ago I felt guilty as a German. I was born in 1938. Meanwhile, I have reached the opinion that I am neither guilty nor a victim. I think we have to know, we have to try not to forget, and we have to be on guard not to repeat discrimination, which leads to small crimes, which in turn leads to large crime—easy with so many immigrants. Feeling guilty and exhibiting atonement can be an attempt to forgo responsibility.