A Dream of Freedom

Abstract

The correspondence of Sigmund Freud and Nikolay Y. Ossipov, a Russian psychoanalyst and emigré from the Bolshevik terror, was published for the first time in Germany in 2009. It reveals various ways in which psychoanalysis was first disseminated in Eastern Europe and sheds light on Ossipov’s contribution to psychoanalysis, especially his concept of the ego’s “cooperative complexity.” Along with viewing the correspondence as a tool capable of liberating creativity and stimulating scientific production—a perspective that may open up a new and promising research field—special focus is placed on Freud’s response to Ossipov’s efforts to expand psychoanalysis and link it with literature and speculative philosophy. A leitmotif of the letters is the freedom of science and the different reactions of the two men to the threats posed by politics. Freud’s warm and compassionate response to the precarious situation and creative efforts of Ossipov, the first analyst in exile, is examined.