With the permission of The International Journal of Psychoanalysis, the Letters will be published in IJP in issue 1, 2018. LETTERS FROM WARSAW THE BEGINNING OF PSYCHOANALYSIS IN POLAND 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 Sigmund Freud. 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 Vienna, 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 Otto Fenichel, 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 England. 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 United Kingdom 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.