Since May 1990 the Joint Committee on Soviet Educational Exchange has engaged in a program of collaboration with a number of Russian groups interested in psychoanalysis. Despite daunting political, bureaucratic, and financial hurdles, psychoanalytic theory has been introduced to interested mental health professionals, and a plan devised to train carefully selected applicants at American institutes.
In St. Petersburg, four teaching visits to the Bekhterev Institute have established an understanding that the Houston-Galveston Institute will develop a pilot teaching program, led by Dr. Roy Aruffo, and a series of visits by faculty members. In Moscow the committee has been working with the newly reconstituted Russian Psychoanalytic Association, led by Drs. Aron Belkin and Lev Gertsik. Members of the committee have cooperated in a program set up by Dr. William O'Brien in which members of the Philadelphia Psychoanalytic Institute, together with colleagues from several other institutes, have made regular teaching visits over the past two years. Currently Drs. Belkin and Gertsik are planning 40 week-long courses for psychiatrists, to be held over a two-year period, with the goal of updating their knowledge and providing the humane ingredient so missing in the decades of politically perverted psychiatry.
Despite these successes in promulgating psychoanalytic principles, however, the aim of providing full analytic training for qualified Russian applicants has proved a more difficult project. But despite problems with visas, licenses, stateside employment, and of course money, 17 applicants have now been screened, 10 of whom have been accepted by various institutes. Three applicants from St. Petersburg are now in Texas as guests of Houston's Russian Project Committee. They are in positions at several medical schools where they are now working, as well as studying for the ECFMG tests required to begin residency training. At that point they will be ready to apply for analytic training.
Another applicant has recently passed Part 1 of the ECFMG tests and seems assured of a visa He will come to Los Angeles to work on a special research project with Dr. Scott Carder, a member of the joint committee, and will prepare himself for Part 2 of the tests. Three additional applicants from Moscow are preparing to take the tests in Warsaw this year. The best plan for these applicants is to find them research or teaching positions in the U.S. paying enough to live on until they can pass the tests. This provides them financial stability and access to study materials while improving their facility in English.
There has been a significant development involving our first clinical psychologist applications. A husband and wife team on the faculty of Moscow University and prominent in clinical psychology in Moscow have been accepted for training by the Washington Institute and the Baltimore-Washington Institute. We have known this couple since our first visit in April 1990 and consider them to be excellent applicants. They will have some financial support from several interested groups in Washington and are expected to arrive in this country by the end of the year. The visa, licensing and job problems have to be worked out, but will likely be manageable since they will not be required to take preliminary tests such as those required of psychiatrists.
Thus far seven institutes have been enlisted in a consortium, and several more have indicated interest. A number of members from other institutes have asked to participate in the program, and several will make teaching visits to Russia. Once several Russian candidates are enrolled in analytic training and the program can be evaluated, other institutes will be encouraged to join.
Another project is to send books and journals to Russian colleagues. The editors of three leading psychoanalytic journals have donated subscriptions and back issues to the Bekhterev Institute and the Russian Psychoanalytic Association. In addition, Shelley Orgel, a member of the committee, has worked out a plan with International Universities Press for the shipment of books and journals to Russia. Anyone wishing to contribute in this way should call Dr. Orgel.
Capping the committee's efforts is the recent U.S. visit by Professor Modest M. Kabanov, Director of the Bekhterev Institute, Russia's foremost psychiatric institution. The Houston-Galveston Institute was largely responsible for bringing Prof. Kabanov here, with some financial help from The American and the two Philadelphia psychoanalytic groups. He attended the American Psychiatric Association meetings in Washington and then spent several days in Philadelphia, where he gave two lectures. For the following ten days, he was the guest of the Houston-Galveston Institute and lectured at a number of medical schools and hospitals. At several receptions and dinners in his honor the teaching program at the Bekhterev was discussed and relations cemented. In the coming months and years the joint committee will continue its efforts to restore psychoanalysis in the former Soviet Union.
Homer C. Curtis chairs the Joint Committee on Soviet Educational Exchange.