For several decades now, many analysts have been concerned with a crisis in psychoanalysis in the Americas and in western Europe. During the same period, the development of psychoanalysis in eastern Europe, where countries were in the grip of rapid social and political change, has been impressive.
The connection between rapid social change and the growth of psychoanalysis is not accidental. Analysis never developed and flourished in a steady average expectable environment. Psychoanalysis had its start in the birthplace of modernity, Freud's Vienna, an environment characterized by unsurpassed rapidity and depth of ideological, social, and political change. While the changes are different, the depth and the speed of change in eastern Europe since the fall of the Iron Curtain come close to those seen at the very birth of psychoanalysis. It is not surprising that at a time of crisis of analysis in the West, a vast region alive with enthusiasm for psychoanalysis began to attract the interest of Western analysts.
For our purposes, eastern Europe is more a political than a geographic term, since communism prevailed in much of central Europe. The extent to which psychoanalysis ever existed, and the traces of it preserved underground, vary greatly from country to country. But the Iron Curtain was not a totally hermetic seal, everywhere; and even before the east bloc crumbled, some connections between Western and underground Eastern analysts had been re-established or newly formed. During the second half of the 1980s, the development of psychoanalysis in eastern Europe accelerated and was supported by individual Western psychoanalysts, many analytic societies, the European Federation, and the IPA. On the institutional level, east European educational projects functioned and continue to function as laboratories for organizing co-operation and for dealing constructively with competitive and turf issues that are not unknown on the larger psychoanalytic scene.
People emerging from the control of repressive regimes found tremendous appeal in psychoanalysis, with its emphasis on free individual expression. They were talented and well-educated people (high educational standards had been maintained in many communist regimes), hungry for and enthusiastic about psychoanalytic ideas and treatment. A significant number of potential candidates had previously learned about analysis on their own initiative and through a psychoanalytic underground. Nonetheless, Western teachers had to learn to differentiate genuine interest in psychoanalysis from a more diffuse enthusiasm for anything “Western.”
The greatest challenge to an educational project was, of course, the dearth of local analysts, analytic teachers, and individuals ready to function as training analysts. In some locations, heroic underground analysts had kept some analytic tradition alive, but usually these individuals had been isolated and cut off from decades of developments in psychoanalysis. They were invited to participate in the new educational effort. It was an important but sometimes difficult diplomatic task to combine respect for the achievement of keeping analysis alive with a recognition of the limitations resulting from this isolation.
An increasing number of individual Western analysts visited the budding analytic groups in the East, consulted on clinical cases, and presented clinical or theoretical papers. These visits were generally appreciated, but their usefulness was sometimes limited because the locations chosen and the timing of the visits were often more for tourism than psychoanalytic educational reasons. The first task was to gather information about this psychoanalytic tourism, to learn who was presenting what material where and for what reason, and occasionally to pass on to the visiting analysts information about specific groups, their needs, interests, and current problems. Some of these visits required a more cautious approach than the visitors intended, because they touched on individuals or events that were still contaminated by the previous political oppressive regime.
In addition to visits by individual analysts, several Western psychoanalytic societies soon started more organized programs in the 1980s. In the United States, for example, Homer Curtis organized the first group of American analysts traveling regularly to Russia for systematic teaching; Gary Goldsmith, who is now a member of the new Han Groen-Prakken Psychoanalytic Institute for Eastern Europe (more about the institute later) and the East European Subcommittee of the IPA's New Groups Committee, is continuing this important teaching program.
Initially there was some psychoanalytic colonizing or proselytizing. American analysts wanted to export American analysis into virgin territory; French analysts wanted to spread French analysis; Kleinians Kleinian analysis, etc. Early tensions resulting from this were not always helpful. Now such tensions have largely become transformed into a refreshingly creative force. In the east European
John S. Kafka, M.D., is co-chair with Han Groen-Prakken of the East European Subcommittee of IPA's New Groups Committee.
summer schools—week-long “schools” for relative beginners, schools for advanced candidates, and a child analysis school—teachers with various orientations and from various countries present theoretical papers and clinical material. Lectures alternate with small group discussions, group consultations, and individual consultations. Students and teachers are exposed to different perspectives and to the students' reactions to various schools. Here the east European candidates may well have an advantage over some of ours, who may have less exposure to different views.
In the beginning, we who wanted to organize an educational program had no choice but to develop an educational laboratory and explore alternative educational paths. Because there were no local training analysts, some candidates moved to the West; not unexpectedly, some stayed there. Only a few candidates lived in a border region that permitted commuting to the offices of a Western training and supervising analyst. Another solution had to be found for most candidates.
We experimented with intermittent periods of analysis. Various models of shuttle or condensed analysis gradually evolved. These included a variety of arrangements, for instance several months abroad or one week abroad each month. Gradually some guidelines for the individual arrangements developed, such as an attempt to have at least close to 100 sessions per year. The east European committees of the European Federation and the IPA together walked this tightrope between flexibility and gradually more specific guidelines. In addition to the week-long summer schools already mentioned, several psychoanalytic societies established theoretical seminars in the West for east Europeans. Western analysts also helped organize and participated in seminars in the East.
Another set of guidelines was crucial. Since nothing close to the current usual psychoanalytic educational structure was available, the assessment of individuals had to be based on how they functioned, not so much on how they had acquired their functioning level. This shift in emphasis gradually applied across the board in the selection of individuals for training, for shuttle analysis, for direct membership in the IPA, and to some extent in the selection of those who could conduct training analysis.
As the educational activities and the number of candidates increase, it has become possible to form a number of IPA-recognized study groups. The IPA's East European Subcommittee organizes sponsoring committees for the new study groups. These groups then develop their own educational programs until the groups become provisional societies. The provisional societies develop more and more autonomy as they work with a liaison committee (also organized by the East European Subcommittee) until the provisional societies become component societies of the IPA.
The chairs of the sponsoring and liaison committees are members of the IPA's East European Subcommittee of the New Groups Committee. They share their experience with each other and with the new Han Groen-Prakken Psychoanalytic Institute for Eastern Europe. Close coordination of the work of the institute and that of the the IPA subcommittee is essential since the same candidates pass from the first to the second administrative structure.
As psychoanalytic education in eastern Europe continued to grow and evolve throughout the 1980s and 1990s, guidelines became gradually firmer and eventually became regulations that were applied with increasing consistency. This led to the formation of a more tightly organized institute with a training section, an outreach, section and a research section. The Han Groen-Prakken Psychoanalytic Institute for Eastern Europe is the umbrella organization, the psychoanalytic institute for all the candidates in localities where there are not yet any study groups. Some summer schools also serve an outreach function and include interested individuals who are not yet candidates. In addition to the candidates of the institute, summer schools also accept candidates of the study groups and the provisional societies.
Candidates of the institute become candidates of study groups, and study groups become provisional societies. When all provisional societies have become component societies of the larger psychoanalytic world, the special tasks of the Han Groen-Prakken Psychoanalytic Institute for Eastern Europe and the IPA's East European Subcommittee will have been completed.
While psychoanalytic education is financially difficult everywhere, the economic conditions in most eastern European countries are such that the sacrifices made by candidates in the region merit special consideration. Minimal fees for analysis and supervision, housing of candidates, support for visits abroad, block financial contributions, and self-paid travel to teach are some of the ways in which individuals and societies have helped and continue to help. None of the teachers, members of IPA's New Groups Committee in eastern Europe, members of the groups' sponsoring and liaison committees, nor staff members of the Han Groen-Prakken Psychoanalytic Institute for Eastern Europe are compensated. They are only reimbursed for their travel and stay. Financial contributions to support the IPA East European Subcommittee and the Han Groen-Prakken Psychoanalytic Institute for Eastern Europe can be sent to the International Psychoanalytical Association, Broomhills, Woodside Lane, London N12 8UD, UK. Checks can be made out to “IPA Fund.” A fundraising campaign last year asked for donations equivalent to one analytic hour.
Psychoanalysis is growing in the East. In this fluid situation, more than 150 candidates (roughly evenly divided between the new institute and established groups) are becoming thoughtful and creative analysts whom you will want to meet. They deserve your support.