With the permission of The International Journal of , the Letters will be published in IJP in issue 1, 2018.

LETTERS FROM WARSAW

THE BEGINNING OF PSYCHOANALYSIS IN The history of the psychoanalytic movement in Poland is marked by recurrent loss. Therefore, it can be said that there were several beginnings. Historical and social circumstances hindered or prevented the establishment of an institutional form of this movement for a long time. What is most characteristic of the psychoanalytic movement in Poland is the enthusiasm and passion, as well as the profiles of the most significant people dedicated to the idea of psychoanalysis. Psychoanalytic thought in Poland was present almost from the very beginning of its formulation by . At that time, and until 1918, Poland did not exist as a state being divided into three parts among the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Germany and Russia. For this reason, many people studied not only in Cracow or Warsaw, but also in the major centers of scientific life in the area - in , Berlin and less often in Moscow. As the authors of the exhibition on the history of Polish psychoanalysis1 wrote: Among the members of the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society until 1938, as many as 19 people were born on land recognized as Polish. Some of these people were also members of the Berlin Society. They were: Sigfried Bernfeld, Berta Bornstein, Stefania Borstein-Windholz, Gustaw Bychowski, Bernhard Dattner, Helena Deutsch, Ludwik Eidelberg, Salomea Gutmann-Isakower, Ludwik Jekels, Salomea Kempner, Edward Krohengold, Johaness Jaroslaw Marcinkowski, Hermann Nunberg, Beata Rank, Jozef Reinhold, Izydor Isaak Sadger, Max Schur, Eugenia Sokolnicka, Jenny Wälder. Poland was a multinational country at the time, and the above mentioned people were of different nationalities. Some of them came from assimilated Jewish families, some from mixed Polish-Jewish families or from Polish-German families. However, most of them was strongly associated with Polish culture. Several people in this group felt Polish and maintained a strong bond with Poland. They tried to instill psychoanalytic ideas among Polish psychiatrists, translating Freud into Polish. We consider them pioneers of psychoanalysis in Poland. These were Ludwik Jekels, Hermann Nunberg and Gustaw Bychowski. Their profiles illustrate the significant influence of psychoanalysts coming from this region of Europe on the development of world psychoanalysis. In the face of the onslaught of fascism, they all emigrated to the United States and continued their clinical practice in New York. All of them had a significant contribution to the development of psychoanalysis there. Ludwik Jekels being temporarily in Sweden, along with , was also a co-founder of the Swedish-Finnish Psychoanalytic Society and was a key figure there.(Wojciechowska et al., 2012) At this point, it is necessary to mention another person, who contributed immensely to the development of world psychoanalytic thought, and who until her death was associated with Poland. Hanna Segal was born in Lodz to an assimilated Jewish

1 I would like to thank my colleagues from the team that worked on the history of Polish psychoanalysis: Ewa Wojciechowska, Agnieszka Makowiecka-Pastusiak, Agnieszka Myśliwiec-Ferduła and Anna Szypusińska. The exhibition prepared by this team for the 15th anniversary of PPS will be available for viewing at the EPF Conference in Warsaw. family. She grew up and went to school in Warsaw, and after a short stay in Switzerland returned to Warsaw to study. The outbreak of World War II eventually forced her to emigrate. She completed her medical studies and psychoanalytic training in . For the rest of her life she emphasized her Polish roots and was proud of them. Hanna Segal together with another British analyst of Polish origin Wiktor Sedlak played a significant role in the period of the revival of psychoanalysis in Poland in the 1980s and 1990s. WORLD WAR II The outbreak of World War II, and the implementation of the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact signed between Germany and Russia, dramatically affected the lives of all people living in Poland. Already at the very beginning, in 1939 our country was divided between the communist USSR and fascist Germany. It is well known that Fascist Germany intended to exterminate the Jews. It must be stressed, however, that the two invaders were also pursuing a planned policy aimed at obliterating the Polish intellectual elite and transforming the nation into a slave mass. The course of the war in these areas was much fiercer than in Western Europe. The magnitude of destruction, loss and breach of continuity had a great impact on our destiny. The war not only destroyed the economy, but also overthrew the values that had to that point been considered inviolable. The trauma of this period left its mark on our reality as well as our consciousness and collective unconsciousness. For psychoanalysis, it meant a complete disaster. As I mentioned earlier, most psychoanalysts emigrated before the outbreak of war. The only survivor of the war in Poland was Maurycy Bornstein, a doctor who in the years 1908-1939 was the head of the Psychiatric Ward of the Jewish Hospital in Warsaw, where psychoanalytic thought was propagated. He himself wrote a psychiatry manual in which he recommended working in the spirit of psychoanalysis. Initially he spent the war in the Warsaw Ghetto, and later on hid in one of the Warsaw suburbs. After the war, he worked in Lodz and continued to promote the ideas of psychoanalysis, however, they were not met with a positive response. COMMUNIST REGIME The postwar reconstruction of life in Poland took place in the specific conditions of the communist regime and dependence on the Soviet Union. Life behind the "iron curtain" brought with it a number of difficult experiences: authoritarianism, abuse of power and the restriction of fundamental civil liberties. The 1950s especially was a period of very intense repression on the part of the Stalinist regime - prison and death sentences for the so-called "class enemies". As early as 1949, the Soviet Union officially banned psychoanalysis as a bourgeois ideology. As a consequence, independent psychoanalytic thought in all countries of the Eastern Bloc, including Poland, was considered hostile. "In the philosophical dictionary of that period (1955) we can read: "Freudianism and Neofreudianism remain in the service of American imperialism, which uses "the theory" propagating consciousness is subordinate to “subconsciousness" to justify and develop the lowest and most despicable human aspirations and instincts" (Wojciechowska et al., 2012)

FROM THE1960s TO 1980s. WE START ANEW.

The historical context is necessary to understand why the ideas of psychoanalysis have been absent for so long and why their rebirth has been slow. Also, social processes are closely linked to historical events. The end of 1950s, after the death of Stalin, was the so-called “thaw” period. In response to this, various ideas came to life, including psychoanalytic thought. And here again there were individuals whose passion and determination gave rise to a broader process. As the colleagues from the History Team wrote: "In fact, until the1990s, psychoanalysis was taught in Poland in a manner similar to the days of the beginnings of the psychoanalytic movement in Europe. The theory was studied and the practice was discussed in groups that were forming around leaders and which fulfilled the role normally played by training institutes. Some of the groups formed within the institution and had a more organized nature, while other ones worked quite informally." (Wojciechowska et al., 2012) It is worth mentioning the names of people who played a significant role in promoting psychoanalysis in 1960s and 1970s. They were Jan Malewski, Michał Lapinski, Zbigniew Sokolik. They went through their own shuttled analysis in Czechoslovakia or in Hungary and tried to treat patients in the same spirit while promoting theoretical knowledge by organizing systematic seminars. The participants of these seminars, in turn, tried to spread the acquired knowledge in their workplaces. As a result, the group of people interested in psychoanalysis was growing. This was a very intense period of time, the society experienced both losses and profits as two of the above mentioned leaders emigrated from Poland permanently. At the same time, from the end of the 1970s and particularly in the 1980s contacts with therapists from Western Europe had been developing. With the help of the analysts of Polish origin living abroad, and thanks to the activity of our colleagues, we were able to establish contacts with psychoanalysts from Germany, the and Sweden. We received tremendous help from these psychoanalytic societies, both in terms of content (supervisions, seminars, book sharing) as well as financial and organizational assistance. Without this help, we would certainly not have been able to develop in such a short time. Memories of that time and gratitude for the help received are still alive in our circles. AFTER THE IRON CURTAIN: The FIRST PSYCHOANALYTIC INSTITUTIONS After 1989, the political situation in Poland changed and the process of democratization began. Together with it, there came openness to the world, freedom and revival of contacts with Western Europe. It was an extremely important period of the dynamic development for the psychoanalytic movement in Poland. Almost at the same time (1991) two associations were formed: The Polish Society for Development of Psychoanalysis, and the Institute of Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy. Both aimed at further development of psychoanalysis. The Society for Development of Psychoanalysis organized regular psychoanalysis training modelled on IPA standards, and talked about the possibility of accepting some of their members as IPA direct members. The efforts of Polish colleagues resulted in permanent cooperation with the IPA towards creating conditions for close integration within the framework of the IPA. The turning point was organizing The Third Eastern European Seminar EPF in Pułtusk near Warsaw. 60 people from Eastern European countries, including 15 from Poland and 40 Western European psychoanalysts and representatives, participated in the event. After this meeting, decision was made to create a special mode of applying for direct membership in the IPA for Eastern European countries. The Site Visit Committee was set up to monitor the preparations for creating the Study Group. As a result of this cooperation and numerous efforts in the next decade, 12 people became direct members of IPA. During this period many people supported our society and it is impossible to name them all, but Haan Groen Prakken, a Dutch psychoanalyst, played a key role. As a representative of the EPF and the IPA she visited the countries of Central and Eastern Europe and visited Poland many times from 1989 to 1998. The authors of the exhibition described her like that: "Her ease of reconciling people, alleviating conflicts and understanding the intricate realities of post-communist countries were invaluable. Haan Groen Prakken supported our society in a very specific but also friendly way until we got the status of IPA Study Group. Still during her lifetime, the EPF's Eastern European Psychoanalytic Institute for Eastern Europe (The Haan Gröen-Prakken Psychoanalytic Institute for Eastern Europe) was established. It worked for many years training analysts from countries where psychoanalysis was just developing and Polish psychoanalysts held there the positions of teachers. (Wojciechowska et al., 2012) WE JOIN THE IPA! It has been 20 years since the Polish Psychoanalytical Society (PPS) was founded. At the Congress in Barcelona in 1997 we received the status of Study Group at IPA. In the following year, we started training for candidates, which at that time was monitored by the Sponsoring Committee. The Society then consisted of 18 members and 16 candidates. In 2004, we became the Provisional Society and 10 years ago, in 2007 we received the status of the Component Society – we had 31 analysts and 28 candidates at that time. It was a very special moment, the culmination of many years of efforts and endeavours of people from Poland as well as our friends from other countries. Since the beginning of the Society's development, its teachers have placed emphasis on thorough education, which required a great deal of effort because English-language psychoanalytic books were hardly available and, in most cases, were not translated into Polish. We used to copy and translate ourselves selected passages, or used previous work prepared by our older colleagues. Thanks to these efforts we gained a good basis for further development and status to participate in international psychoanalytic life. The Polish Psychoanalytic Society is developing dynamically, as shown by figures: we currently have 63 members and 33 candidates. More and more people who completed the training were involved in the activities and structures of the Society, which enabled a more comprehensive development of the whole society. I think we have avoided the inhibition resulting from the desire to maintain control or power by the same people. When Otto Kernberg (2006) wrote about authoritarian trends in psychoanalytic training, our Society also discussed the subject. For years, different ideas and tendencies have been clashing and discussions lead to democratic changes. A good example of this may be the fact that for several years, the Presidents of the Polish Psychoanalytic Society have come from the so-called second generation, that is, those who have been trained in our Society. The Training Committee has also a similar composition and because the heads of individual subcommittees are training analysts coming from the "second generation" too. It is also worth mentioning that among the members and candidates of our Society there are people living in different parts of Poland, not only in large cities like Gdańsk, Cracow, Poznań or Wrocław, but also in small towns. At present, more than 10% of candidates live outside of Warsaw, and our efforts have been aimed at facilitating training for such people and it seems to bring positive effects. An important feature of our society is the curiosity and willingness to exchange with psychoanalysts from other countries. For a long time, the Society's authorities have been supporting all kinds of initiatives conducive to international exchange. We invite many foreign guests from different theoretical trends who conduct lectures and seminars. This cooperation is extremely interesting and fruitful. Since the beginning of PPS, we have been organizing conferences - traditionally once a year in May. This year we are going to have our jubilee 20th PPS Conference. For several years we have also been organizing autumn conferences, which are devoted to two themes in turn: children and adolescent psychoanalysis, and the thought of D.W. Winnicott. The psychoanalysts who are our conference guests come from different parts of the world and from different theoretical backgrounds. Our conferences attract a lot of interest – in recent years they have been attracting about 350 participants each, which shows that there is significant and constantly increasing interest in psychoanalysis in Poland. The result of these processes is our more pronounced presence in the international psychoanalytic movement. It was a great honour for our Society to receive the proposal to organize the 31st EPF conference in March 22-25, 2018. We hope that the conference will be an opportunity for an inspiring exchange of thoughts around the main theme of "The Origin of Life", but it will also be a chance for others to become familiar with our country as well as our Society, which has recently been moved by the current political situation not only in Poland but also in other countries. Although Warsaw experienced the effects of totalitarianism in a very painful way, at present it still participates in reviving anti-Semitism and fascist sympathies. That is why it might be the right place to undertake a broader discussion not only about the origins of life, but also the origins of destruction that concerns us. On behalf of the members of the Polish Psychoanalytic Society as well as my own, I invite you to take part in a joint discussion. We look forward to seeing you in Warsaw.

Ewa Glod, President of the Polish Psychoanalytical Society

REFERENCES: Dybel, P. (2016). Psychoanalysis -a promised land? History of psychoanalysis in Poland 1900-1989, part I, Kraków: Universitas. Hundred Years War, or the whole age of psychoanalysis. Anna Turczyn talks with Elisabeth Roudinesco , ( 2008) IBL, Second texts, 207-221. Magnione, L., (2016) Freud's Emissaries. Cultural Transfer of Psychoanalysis to Polish Intellectual Spheres Before World War II, Kraków: Universitas. Wojciechowska, E., Makowiecka-Pastusiak, A., Myśliwiec-Ferduła, A., Szypusińska, A. (2012). Psychoanalysis in Poland. 15th anniversary of Poland's admission to IPA. An exhibition prepared by the History Team at the board of the Polish Psychoanalytic Society.

THE EUROPEAN PSYCHOANALYTICAL FEDERATION AND THE CONFERENCE IN WARSAW 2018

The European Psychoanalytical Federation (EPF) is very grateful to the colleagues of the Polish Psychoanalytical Society for giving the opportunity to conduct the 31st EPF Conference in Warsaw 2018. Warsaw with its changeful and tragic as well as heroic history, is a most appropriate place for a cooperative exchange about the conference theme “The Origin of Life”. In the last century, Warsaw and its inhabitants had to suffer from so many painful deaths but they were also able to survive the terrible destruction executed by the German Nazi war criminals. Warsaw had to also overcome a long period of repression by the communist system. We remember and honour the heroic resistance of the Polish Jews and all Polish citizens who fought against the Nazi barbarism and thus finally gave space for the predominance of life over death, even if so many people had lost their lives. The defeat and capitulation of the German army had been a starting point for new hope and new life in Europe even if there followed other political vicissitudes and difficulties in Poland which persist until today. The analytical traveller who arrives in Warsaw from abroad, and visits the scars and resurrection of the city´s architecture can also dare to sense the fight between life and death in the impressive Rising Museum and in the Jewish Museum. He/she will be deeply touched by a vast amount of emotions, oscillating between horror, fear of death, admiration of bravery and relief by new hope. The traveller may be reminded of Freud´s (1915) statement: “We recall the old saying: Si vis pacem, para bellum. If you want to preserve peace, arm for war. It would be in keeping with the times to alter it: Si vis vitam, para mortem. If you want to endure life, prepare yourself for death. (SE, 14, p. 300)

But the traveller may also remember another remark in which Freud (1930) declares: “And now it is to be expected that the other of the two ‘Heavenly Powers’ [p. 133], eternal Eros, will make an effort to assert himself in the struggle with his equally immortal adversary. But who can foresee with what success and with what result?” (SE 21, p 145). Contemporary psychoanalysis continues to deal with this struggle between Eros and Thanatos and it is one crucial dimension of our psychoanalytic practice to support the transformation of mentally dead areas into a livelier psychic existence.

Against this backdrop, the topic of the next EPF Conference in Warsaw is “The Origin of Life”. In this conference, we want to reconsider the origin of life under the conditions of a culturally and technically changing world. In our psychoanalytic consulting rooms, we now come across an increasing number of individuals who, for a variety of reasons, are willing to take advantage of the wide range of new possibilities of modern reproductive medicine, which covers the whole spectrum available from in vitro fertilization to egg cell donation or even embryo transfer, and thus make their fantasies into technologically supported realities. This, of course, may have considerable and serious consequences for all the adult persons involved, particularly in view of their psychological self-understanding or identity feeling, but all the more for those children who owe their existence to these new opportunities for the application of assisted reproduction technologies (ART). This development poses a major challenge to us as psychoanalysts. Neither can we uncritically welcome the technically feasible, nor can we categorically disapprove of and thus pathologize it. In our conference, we want to take up a research perspective and investigate the different aspects We want to ask: when does life begin, especially when does human life begin, and when does human mental life begin? What is it, that makes us as humans specifically human, also in comparison with other mammals? And what is in all this the role of biology and the role of homeostasis, the role of the mother-child dialogue and mother-father-child trialogue, the role of language acquisition and the integration of one's own life story? And when, how and why does a child come to acquire confidence in his cognitive faculties, in his ”epistemic trust“, and under which conditions is this destined to failure?

All of this pertains to the question of the origin of human life - and that certainly also includes the unconscious transmission of the earlier experiences of the previous generations to the next one. It would, therefore, be worth exploring and clarifying what the unconscious transgenerational routes and mental pathways are, by which, for example, the traumatic experiences of previous generations are transmitted and thus passed on to the next generations. And it will even be more exciting to consider the question of whether, or to what extent, changes in the regulatory structures of the genes of previous generations are transmitted and passed on to the next generation. In this respect, the fascinating field of epigenetic research opens up new horizons of knowledge that substantiate the classical psychoanalytic concepts. Epigenetic research results fit well with Freud's concept of the “complemental series” in the genesis of neuroses (1905d, Standard Edition, Vol 7). In this sense, the conference will offer several opportunities to discuss the close interdependency of the genetic endowment and the quality of parental relationship and parenting behaviour. This interdependency will also be of crucial importance for the understanding of the psychological development of children conceived by in-vitro-fertilization or other methods of medically assisted reproductive technologies.

Coming back to Eros and Thanatos as the two forces that destine human life: especially in view of the fact that eighty percent of the city of Warsaw was destroyed during the Second World War, we also want to open a space for the question: Is a new life conceivable at all in the wake of such terrible and horrendous destruction? And how, in the face of such devastation, can a new beginning, a re-birth of life possibly come about?

The EPF looks forward to welcoming you in Warsaw.

Heribert Blass, Vice President of the European Psychoanalytical Federation