Historians Convene in Brussels

Tshe International Association for the History of Psychoanalysis (IAHP) convened its fourth international meeting last fall at the Free University of Brussels. The theme of the four-day meeting, held September 17-20, was “A Comparative History of the Early Stages of Psychoanalysis in Europe.” Attendance was approximately 150, primarily from Western Europe.

The papers concerned themselves with the origins of the psychoanalytic movement in virtually every country in Europe. With the exception of a group of ten shorter papers delivered in a single language, all of the presentations were simultaneously translated into English, German, and French.

Naturally Austria and Freud were well spoken for. Lydia Flem discussed the early isolation of Freud in Vienna and Harold Leupold-Lowenthal the reception of psychoanalysis there. Eva Laible's paper on the development of applied analysis in Vienna included a treatment not only of psychoanalysis applied to art and literature but also to child rearing and child analysis.

Mireille Cifali's comprehensive paper on the reception of psychoanalysis in Switzerland dealt also with its influence on doctors, theologians, and the cognitive psychology of Piaget. H.P.J. Stroeken pointed out that in the Netherlands, a society was founded as early as 1913 and that psychoanalysis flourished there in part because every university student read German, making translations unnecessary. Ludger Hermanns spoke about Karl Abraham and the early years of the Berlin Institute, while Karen Dittrich discussed the local development of psychoanalysis in Zurich, Berlin, and Munich before World War I.

Malcolm Pines and Robert D. Hinchelwood presented a richly detailed historical and biographical account of the reception of psychoanalysis in Great Britain, and were followed by Earl Hopper and Susan Budd, who took a sociological approach to the subject. Hopper and Budd questioned the extent to which psychoanalysis has truly influenced British culture an thought.

Alain de Mijolla, dealing with psychoanalysis in France, noted that there were no great pioneers in that country and attributed the lack of French translations of Freud before 1920 to the Germanophobia that followed World War I. Jean Garrabe' discussed the place of psychoanalysis in French psychiatric textbooks.

Two interesting papers on psychoanalysis in Italy examined its prehistory there, the figure of Edoardo Weiss, and the Revista di Psicoanalisi. The Belgian history of psychoanalysis group presented a comprehensive panel whose seven papers covered, among other topics, the early introduction to psychoanalysis, the sociocultural conflicts that impeded its growth, psychoanalysis and the Belgian surrealist movement, and psychoanalysis in Flanders.

The four papers from Eastern Europe were particularly well received. The Hungarian Ferenc Eros's treatise on leftist responses to psychoanalysis between the wars ended with the sad tale of anti-Freudian attitudes parallelling those in the Soviet Union. Michael Sebek spoke on the pioneering individuals in Prague between the wars and their role in fostering psychoanalysis in the countries to which they immigrated. He noted that his training was conducted basically sub rosa during the period of Soviet influence in Czechoslovakia.

Alexander Etkind, who has written a book on the history of psychoanalysis in Russia, detailed its reception there between 1906 and 1936. The influence of Jung and Adler was noted, as well as that of Freud. A complementary paper by Aron I. Belkin and Alexander Mikhalevitch discussed the discontinuities and contradictions in the Russo-Soviet cultural integration of psychoanalysis between 1910 and 1945. Although it was at first well received, “Stalinist bureaucrats hastened to put an end to a discipline which enabled its followers to cast an objective glance upon the mechanisms of illusion and idealization that the new power was learning to manipulate.”

Papers on the reception of psychoanalysis in Sweden, Denmark, Portugal, and Spain were also presented. Two plenary papers, Edith Kurzweil's on American ambivalence toward psychoanalysis and the “Pope in Vienna” and Paul Roazen's on uniquely American reactions to psychoanalysis, concluded a rich and rewarding conference. If one general criticism could be levied, it might be that too often in the presentations, the larger historical picture was obscured in the welter of names, dates, and often fascinating detail.

IAHP was founded in 1985 by Alain de Mijolla, a member of the IPA and the Paris Psychoanalytic Society, who has been its president ever since. The group publishes a newsletter for its members, in both French and English editions, which has now gone to 13 issues. It also published the Revue Internationale d'Histoire de la Psychanalyse which appears only in French. Unfortunately, after running six numbers, that superb journal ceased publication in 1993 for lack of financial support; back issues, however, are available from IAHP.

The association's next meeting, scheduled for Berlin in late July of 1994, has as its theme, “Psychoanalytic Splits within the History of the Psychoanalytic Movement.” On November 4-6 of last year, the association cosponsored, with UCLA, a Los Angeles conference entitled “Psychoanalysis and Cinema .”