“…deep within me, although overlaid, there continues to live the happy child of Příbor…who received from this air, from this soil, the first indelible impressions….”
Letter from Sigmund Freud to the Mayor of Příbor, October 25, 1931
Embedded in the experience of Příbor's “air and soil,” the symposium, jointly sponsored by the Margaret Mahler Psychiatric Foundation and the Sigmund Freud Archives, will integrate new data and contemporary psychoanalytic theory that expands and modifies Freud's early findings and reconstructions of the first three years of his life. This will serve as a springboard for general discussion on attachment, separation-individuation, and other aspects of infant development. Freud's early childhood in Příbor will serve as an inspiration for our contemporary dynamic and developmental thought. Symposium participants will have the unprecedented opportunity to convene with prominent international colleagues while experiencing firsthand the culture and locale that helped shape the man and his work: the founding and development of psychoanalysis.
The picturesque town of Příbor located in the heart of the beautiful Valašsko area of Moravia, can now join Freud's celebrated homesteads in Vienna and London.
The symposium will begin on Sunday evening, Aug. 4, with a reception and cultural program that will introduce participants to the rich ethnic folk culture of Valařsko, which inspired the world renowned composer Leoš Janáček, born two years before Freud just three miles away in Hukvaldy.
A symposium in Sigmund Freud's birthplace, Příbor, Czech Republic, following the IPA Congress in Prague, August 2013
Sunday Evening, August 4, 2013 Welcome reception and cultural program
Monday, August 5, 2013 Full-day symposium
Monday, Aug. 5, the full day will be inaugurated by remarks from symposium chair, Harold Blum, executive director of the Sigmund Freud Archives at the Library of Congress; Stefano Bolognini, president of the International Psychoanalytic Association; Martin Mahler, president of the Czech Psychoanalytic Society; Norman Eisen, United States ambassador to the Czech Republic; and officials from the Czech Ministry of Culture and the Town of Příbor.
Václav Buriánek, Czech psychoanalyst and author of Facts and Impressions: A Psychoanalyst's Guide to the Birthplace of Sigmund Freud (currently unavailable in English), will present “Paradise Lost and Trauma Mastered: New Findings on Little Sigmund.” Organizing Committee chair Eva D. Papiasvili, fluent in Czech and English, will introduce and moderate the discussion.
Later, Anni Bergman will elaborate on “Preoedipal dynamics of separation-individuation in light of contemporary attachment studies,” followed by a discussion moderated by Linda Mayers.
Mahler and Papiasvili will present on “Multiculturalism, the Jewish Experience in Příbor, and the Birth of Psychoanalysis,” providing cultural context for Sigmund Freud as individual and creative thinker.
“Early Object Relations and Mentalization,” delivered by past IPA president, Otto Kernberg, will examine Freud's conceptual framework of pre-oedipal development in light of contemporary clinical and developmental theory of earliest mental processes. Blum will moderate the ensuing discussion.
After a luncheon of local specialties, Blum will present “Reconstructing Freud's Pioneering Reconstructions,” modifying Freud's original formulations in the context of current psychoanalytic thought. Haydée Faimberg will moderate and discuss his talk.
Harold P. Blum, M.D., is chair of the Symposium.
Eva D. Papiasvili, Ph.D., ABPP, is chair of the Organizing Committee.
The formal presentations will then give way to open discussion. Daria Colombo, Haydée Faimberg, Jane McAdam Freud, an artist and Sigmund Freud's great-granddaugher, Papiasvili, past president of the Czech Psychoanalytic Society Vendula Probstova, and Adele Tutter will join participants to explore themes like Art in the Life of Sigmund Freud; Multiculturalism and Multilingualism; and Reconstruction.
At the close of the symposium, Marie Šupová, president of the Příbor Sigmund Freud Society, will lead a private tour of the restored Sigmund Freud House, the Jewish Prayer House, and the Příbor town square, including the chapels young Sigmund frequented on Sundays with his nanny.
After the symposium, participants will be free to discover for themselves the many world-class historical and cultural attractions the region has to offer. One of several regional UNESCO World Heritage sites, the Archbishop's Château in Kroměříž boasts important canvases by Titian, Cranach, and Brueghel. Many will recognize the historic battlefield of Austerlitz at Slavkov. Thirty miles south of Příbor is the metropolis of Brno, home of Gregor Mendel's monastery, the birthplace of genetics. Maps and information of these sights and more will be provided.
Visit the symposium website for more information, a detailed program, accommodations, and more: .
On behalf of the symposium faculty and Organizing Committee (Martin Mahler, Linda Mayers, John Munder Ross, Marie Šupová, and Adele Tutter), we invite you to join us in Příbor!
Acknowledgement: The authors wish to thank Adele Tutter, a member of the Organizing Committee, for her help with initial editing of the original materials used in this article.