Yulia Aleshina and her husband, Pavel Snejnevski, came to Washington, D.C., in 1993 from Moscow to begin psychoanalytic training and to establish their practices as clinical psychologists. Both had completed their doctoral training in Moscow and had been in private practice since the early 1980s. While a rising interest in psychotherapy among psychologists was replacing the academic, experimental psychology, they were leaders in promoting psychodynamic understanding in treating patients. Aleshina was also teaching psychologists as a professor in the Moscow State University. In 1987, Snejnevski formed a study group for the understanding and practice of psychodynamic psychotherapy. Weekly meetings were held for discussion and supervision of clinical cases in what later became the Moscow Psychoanalytic Society. As office space in Moscow at that time was scarce, they saw patients in their living room.
They were hungry for more training, and particularly interested in Freudian psychoanalysis as a developmental psychology with deep insights into the workings of the mind and human behavior. Perestroika made it possible for them to attend an international family therapy conference in Budapest. There they met David Reiss. Joann Reiss was president of Washington Psychologists for the Study of Psychoanalysis. The Reisses invited them to Washington, D.C., to present their work in 1990. They were also welcomed in Denver, Boston, and San Francisco to talk about psychotherapy training and treatment in Moscow. With the help of the Reisses, Aleshina and Snejnevski then came to the United States for further training. Aleshina completed her psychoanalytic training at the Baltimore Washington Psychoanalytic Institute while Snejnevski completed his training at the Washington Psychoanalytic Institute.
The Moscow Psychoanalytic Society now has official psychoanalytic study group status through the International Psychoanalytical Association. In preparation for becoming a psychoanalytic training institute as well, members have undergone analyses in Germany and other countries. (There is a second IPA sponsored psychoanalytic study group in Moscow whose members travel to France for their training analyses.) Aleshina and Snejnevski travel to Moscow about twice a year where their colleagues present psychotherapy cases to them for supervision. They also spend a day teaching the students enrolled in the two-year psychotherapy course of the Moscow Psychoanalytic Society. Aleshina remembers being asked by colleagues when she first returned to teach to sign a handbook on psychotherapy she had published prior to leaving Moscow. Startled, she says, “I was a big celebrity and never knew about it.”
The Moscow Psychoanalytic Society now has official psychoanalytic study group status through the International Psychoanalytical Association.
In March 2000, Aleshina and Snejnevski began teaching and supervising both faculty members and students of the psychodynamic psychotherapy division of the Institute for Professional Psychology in Moscow. One division of this group is similar to Division 39 of the American Psychological Association. The Russian Consortium of the American Psychoanalytic Association (ad hoc Committee on Russian-American Educational Exchange, then chaired by Homer Curtis, and now more focused on liaisons in Ukraine under the guidance of Gary Goldsmith), made the initial contact between Aleshina and Snejnevski and the psychodynamic psychotherapy division of the Institute for Professional Psychology.
In addition to meeting in Moscow with faculty members (about 20) and students for didactic work, group supervision/discussion of presented cases, and individual supervision of cases, Aleshina conducts ongoing individual supervision by telephone with members of this group. Snejnevski does some individual supervision as well as small group supervision by conference telephone. Initially, there was no other way to provide the much-needed, continuing case supervision since other potential supervisors were involved in their own training “shuttle-analyses.” Over the years not only has the technology vastly improved, allowing for higher audio quality of connections, the relationships have developed as well, shortening the distance between continents and cultures.
Since there are no insurance companies, fees are arranged individually and typically run about $30 per treatment or supervisory session. It is clearly a labor of love and professional commitment. Aleshina and Snejnevski are both pleased with the rewards as many of the younger students are now joining the Moscow Psychoanalytic Society to further their training. As elsewhere in the world, Moscow therapists now have private offices.
Snejnevski observes, “The longer I'm in the United States and the more accustomed to and integrated in American culture I become, the less cultural differences seem important in determining human nature. There is so much diversity in both Russia and America, one has to look at individuals to truly understand.”
Last December, their Moscow colleagues gratefully hosted a splendid send-off feast to honor and give thanks to Aleshina and Snejnevski for their hard work and thoughtful teaching. The opportunity for these social get-togethers adds yet another rewarding dimension to their transcontinental teaching sojourns.
Barbara J. Novak, M.D., is a training and supervising analyst, Baltimore Washington Institute for Psychoanalysis, and clinical assistant professor of psychiatry, Georgetown University School of Medicine. She is the 2004 recipient of the Albert J. Solnit Award for her paper, “The Psychoanalytic Study of the Child.”