The Vicissitudes of Psychoanalysis in Soviet Russia, 1930-1980

by Lizaveta van Munsteren

Overview

This book considers the changing fortunes of psychoanalysis in Soviet Russia from 1930 to 1980.

Approaching social history in a psychoanalytic key, Lizaveta van Munsteren argues that the growing split between official and informal languages of the time produced multiple strategies to keep alive the conversation around prohibited subjects. Through original archival research on figures such as Bluma Zeigarnik, Alexander Luria, Filipp Bassin and Dmitry Uznadze, van Munsteren offers a more nuanced  understanding of Soviet studies of the unconscious and the role of language in the formation of the mind and in mental disturbances. This book makes a significant contribution to the historiography of psychoanalysis and to the study of the cultural influence of psychoanalysis and its interdisciplinary engagements.

The Vicissitudes of Psychoanalysis in Soviet Russia, 1930-1980 will appeal to historians of psychoanalysis and psychology in Soviet Russia, psychosocial researchers and anyone interested in the critical history of psychoanalysis. 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781032863764
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	08/22/2025
Series:	The History of Psychoanalysis Series
Pages:	196
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.19(h) x (d)

About the Author

Lizaveta van Munsteren, PhD, clinician and academic with a long-standing interest in psychoanalytic theory and history. She is currently a postdoctoral researcher with the FREEPSY project at the University of Essex, UK, working on theoretical formulations of the psychoanalytic frame in free clinics, and archives of free clinics in Vienna and Budapest.

Table of Contents

Introduction  1. Histories of psychoanalysis in Soviet Russia and its Discontents  2. Freud in the Public Discourse  3. Zeigarnik, Luria and Vygotsky. Building pathopsychology  4. Luria's Turn to Psychophysiology, Language and Consciousness  5. Soviet Unconscious: Uznadze, Bassin et al  Epilogue  Bibliography 

Editorial Reviews

'Lizaveta van Munsteren’s new study provides important new insights. This thoughtful, well researched book will interest anyone concerned with the history of ‘the talking cure’, and the politics of the human sciences in the Soviet empire.'

Daniel Pick, professor emeritus, Birkbeck, University of London; training analyst, the British Psychoanalytical Society

'This comprehensive and thorough study by Lizaveta van Munsteren illustrates how Freudian ideas were denied and removed in the Soviet Union. The book then effectively describes the 'return of the repressed'. Psychoanalysis re-emerged in the work of great and unforgettable figures in the history of Soviet psychology.'

Alberto Angelini, psychoanalyst, Sapienza University, National Film School (CSC), Rome, Italy

From the Publisher