In memory of Han Groen-Prakken

It is some time ago that Han has been buried and that I, gratefully and full of sorrow, had been among those to witness the cremation ceremony at Driehus, close to the Sea, that wonderful and exceptional day of October 23, 2003. The Art Déco room in which we all had gathered was illuminated by the bright and cold sun from the outside, providing a solemn and peaceful atmosphere that was enlivened by words of sorrow, love and respect, by tears and by laughter; all in memory of Han Groen-Prakken. With the exception of Thijs de Wolf and Jaap Tijsma, only members of Han´s family spoke. Her sister and her children moved the audience and brought Han back to us in a very lively way. Numerous were the memories of this wonderful mother, wife and colleague, full of warmth and love for people, with a never ceasing sense of humour; and for a while she was again amongst us in that vivified atmosphere. Most speeches were in Dutch and I would have loved to have understood all the details of the many beautiful stories around this woman of such a unique stature. Jaap Tijsma has been so kind as to translate his homage on Han to me.

It came as a surprise, unexpectedly, and I feel embarrassed to confess that I could not avoid the feeling that in the end I had to realize that she belonged to her family and to her own language. Of course she does so, and my fully inappropriate jealousy only reveals to what extent Han was also part of another life. So much had she been "ours", so fully devoted was she to her self-made commitment to Eastern Europe. On the occasion of her 70th birthday, one of her children had said that they never really knew what her mother was doing in the outside world, and to what extent she was involved with other things next to her children, to whom she was a dependable and caring mother. So, obviously, she had the unique talent of always providing the feeling of being fully present with whomever she was; with ample time, never in a hurry, never distracted.

In her other world she was the English speaking and warm hearted friend of many, despite being both a shrewd and prospective politician and an open and tough opponent when this seemed unavoidable to her. She was full of courage and relentless stamina once she had decided to do what she felt right. She did not shy away from risking to make enemies, and yet she was still open to be friends again. Or, at least, that is how it looked to me; for who really knew her?

To those of us who worked with her in Eastern Europe she was the architect, if not both mother and midwife, of Psychoanalysis in Eastern Europe after 1987. That year Han had become President of The European Psychoanalytical Federation. The same year the Hungarian Society, with the approval of the EPF, organized a Conference in Budapest on "Working on Trauma in the Analysis of Adults and Children". The idea of providing an opportunity where East and West could meet had been implemented. During the breaks in the programme Han was approached by Czech, Polish, Yugoslav and East-Germans wanting to know how they could get in touch with the Western psychoanalytic Communities. In her address on the occasion of the 30th Anniversary of the EPF (Bulletin 48, Spring 1997) Han, in her both humane and succinct style, describes these first steps into unknown territory. She consulted György Hidas for advice on how to travel and she got a threefold warning: "1. allow sufficient time for each visit; 2. don´t travel by train; 3. don´t go alone".

1988 saw her and Ron Baker in Belgrade. One week later, with Eero and Marita Rechardt, she visited Vilnius in Lithuania. The day of their arrival, October 7 1988, turned out to be the day Lithuania declared its Independence! During the riot Eero Rechard was interviewed by the Vilnius Broascasting Station to state what the essence of Psychoanalysis is. He answered to the point: “Freedom of thought!”. Han was thrilled by this experience and continued travelling. Soon the Berlin wall fell and now it really made sense to increase the efforts at meeting the requests coming from the Eastern colleagues. "Encouraging Psychoanalysis in Eastern Europe" had become her programme.

Once, in 1991, the East European Committee of the European Psychoanalytical Federation was established, Han and Eero Rechardt added one further principle of greatest importance: to go by invitation only. Han would gladly respond when there came an invitation from one of the psychoanalytic groups in Eastern Europe. She could not be misunderstood as having missionary intentions; her visits were in no way impositions. She would present a paper, "if the group wished, and we asked for at least one meeting in which someone presented clinical material..." (Bulletin 48). In the ensuing work with her friends and colleagues in the East European Committee of the EPF, some further principles proved supportive of the task of getting East Europeans to form Psychoanalytic groups to establish curricula, especially to meet Psychoanalysis as it is practised and thought about in the established Societies, and above all to foster relationships with Western analysts and to teach how to orient themselves in the Western Psychoanalytic world. It is said with great respect that simultaneously similar attempts had been going on by many other individuals, of European Societies, who travelled East.

As the experience grew some further principles were added. For the East European groups to be supported the prerequisite was interest in clinical Psychoanalysis. This helped to avoid getting entangled in political competition over who gets support. Thus representing a possibly powerful institution never was a basis for concern. Instead, individuals interested in Psychoanalysis and able to form a group that could initiate a teaching curriculum became the focus of support. A critical issue always was the financing of the Seminars and Conferences organized by the East European Committee. Han was very sensitive to aspects of pride and initiated as soon as possible that a participation fee was payed by the East European participants on the basis of feasability. The greater part was payed by the Western participants who deserve eternal thank for their generosity. Furthermore, in Conferences, chairpersons had to be training-analysts so that the East European hosts, the participants and Western sceptics, would know from the start that the intention was to support the development of Psychoanalysis. The EPF-East European Committee´s activities would be restricted to East European countries with groups that had no status in the International Psychoanalytic Association. In this way a distinction could be maintained that proved very helpful in two ways. One, the Committee´s activities were restricted to teaching and getting East and West to meet each other. In contrast training, training criteria and setting standards, remained a matter of concern for the International Psychoanalytical Association. Two, the task of the EPF to do postgraduate training was not challenged. As a result, albeit supported by many other factors, this clear-cut distinction helped later on to establish an IPA-EPF cooperation in Eastern Europe that eventuated in the foundation of "The Han Groen-Prakken Psychoanalytic Institute for Eastern Europe". This came about as a miracle. For Han had sadly and furiously experienced once before a miscarriage of an attempt by IPA and EPF in setting up a conjoint East European enterprise. This time the President of the IPA, Daniel Widlöcher, and the President of the EPF, David Tuckett, could be convinced of the useful work and the applied principles by his East European Committee. Luck helped and they participated in one of the EE Conferences, this time on board a ship starting in Kiev and going down the Dnjeper. Both charmed and convinced by this experience they threw in all their administrative boldness, supported by the equally determined Alain Gibeault, to help create the “Han Groen-Prakken Psychoanalytic Institute for Eastern Europe”. This happened in 2002 and the Institute had, as its initial staff, Paolo Fonda as Director and Aira Laine, Gilbert Diatkine, Gábor Szönyi and Michael Rotmann as Associate Directors, the latter one being soon replaced by Tamara Stajner-Popovic.

Before that could happen, however, there was no shortage of initial opposition within the EPF based on the assumption that the most that could be expected to develop was some sort of Psychotherapy. Han Groen-Prakken proved her critics wrong. In her tenacious, ingenious, original, shrewed and prudent planning she was always ahead of the next step necessary to reach her goal, which she would later define as The Pan-European Psychoanalytical Federation. While the EPF-East European Committee was about to begin and refine its teaching work in Seminars and, later on, Summer Schools carefully avoiding all aspects of training, Han kept an eye on the future which was setting up Psychoanalytical Societies in Eastern Europe with IPA-status. To this end she renewed the interest of the IPA in Eastern Europe. Supported by the indefatigable John Kafka she informed the IPA-President Robert Wallerstein and invited Charles Hanly, Chairman of the New Groups Committee of the IPA, to the 3rd East European Seminar in Pultusk in Poland in 1991. Charles Hanly could be convinced that for a provisional duration of time the standards for obtaining membership in the IPA had to be lowered for the emergent groups in Eastern Europe to have a chance of ever qualifying as an IPA-institution.

The greatest obstacle to reach this goal for the East European colleagues was the impossibility to obtain training analysis, simply because there were no training analysts in the former Communist countries with the exception of Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia. In the past, it had been shown that training abroad, even if that close as Finland, lead to emigration. Eastern Europe, however, needed trained persons to stay.

Relentlessly, Han continued searching for political influence in order to make Psychoanalysis in Eastern European thrive. With John Kafka as co-chair and Paolo Fonda and Gary Goldsmith as members she chaired the IPA-East-European-Sub-Committee, thereby securing the beneficial support of the IPA. Simultaneously, the East-European Committee of the EPF, chaired by Eero Rechardt and later on by Michael Rotmann continued organizing the well known Conferences, Summer-School, and eventually adding as a third the East European Seminar for Candidates. In retrospect it is surprising to see that Han was able to share influential posts. In doing so she was able to take care of herself and avoided getting overwhelmed or immersed by too many assignments. So, she knew where her political influence was mostly needed and she co-chaired with John Kafka the above mentioned IPA committee. Simultaneously, the EPF-East European Committee could be run by other people

Despite the fact that what we did still looked like a drop of water on a hot stove there was a development that only in retrospect could be encompassed as a singularly fortunate complementary series of joint efforts by many European Societies and individual members of the British, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Norwegian, some other European and American Societies, who set up various kinds of theoretical teaching and, later on, training. Most likely it will never be known for sure, but I greatly believe that Han´s dedication to Eastern Europe and her unswerving hope for success was an identificatory focus for many Western analysts. They all did something in Eastern Europe that initially was in no way coordinated. The East European Committee members called it transitional chaos, which indeed it was. Meanwhile, Han and her co-workers had created a most conducive atmosphere. In my view, three independent developments gained momentum and eventually enhanced each other cooperatively. One was the quite experimental and transitory "invention" of "shuttle-analysis" designed conjointly by Eberhard Haas, Igor Kadyrov, Horst Kaechele, Anja Kazanskaja and Hans-Volker Werthmann. Secondly, this was taken up primarily by some Russian colleagues who took the great pains and efforts of sacrificing much of their private lives in the passionate attempt at reaching personal psychoanalysis and training abroad while still not leaving home. Thirdly, this was followed by the eventual growth and availability of East European training analysts in Prague and Vilnius.

As Han had an exceptional overview of the international psychoanalytic world she knew those Western colleagues eventually able and willing to help with staffing the East European Conference, the East European Summer School (which was set up conjointly by Endel Talvik from Tallinn and Han) and the EE Seminar for Candidates (Advanced School, initiated by Michael Rotmann based on a proposal by Tamara Stajner-Popovic)), as well as to know whom to invite as speakers to the Conferences. So it turned out to be one of her many surprising and successful ideas to organize the Conference in Kiev in 2001 on „Violence“ by inviting speakers from Northern Ireland, Israel, Vilnius and Belgrade. She wanted to free our East European colleagues from the burden of feeling themselves to be the only victims of terror.

It is no exaggeration to call Han a very exceptional person when thinking about what she achieved and how she did this. I am certain that everyone who knew her will gladly share in emphasizing her unique warmhearted friendliness, based on firmness and on her always supportive attitude toward people. It so happened in 1991, at the end of a Conference on Training in London, that she asked me if I wanted to become treasurer of the East European Committee. She knew that I had been visiting Vilnius. I was horrified because being treasurer was the one assignment I was determined never to accept. To be sure, I knew that I would never achieve being a sound administrator and accountant. So, over Sherry and her inevitable cigarette, in my Teutonic way I asked her all kinds of questions. Yet, in the end, she said that I had forgotten to ask one important question and this was: "is it fun?" So finally I agreed, being charmed by her subtle sense of humour, her dedication to the East European cause and because she made me feel that she was deeply reliable.

And she proved right, fun we did have: be it in the deep snow in the forests around Vilnius when at the end of the day we would gather around the burning fireplace with a good bottle and our East European friends who held their liquor well; be it at the hot beach of the Baltic Sea at Lohusalu in Estonia where Endel Talvik and Han had invented the East European Psychoanalytic Summer School; or be it on the visiting tour of the Red Square in Moscow where we met the old communist tradition of ransacking bags what infuriated Han´s husband, Sijrk, because it came as a sudden attack. She knew German well but disliked to speak it. Thus we spoke English almost all the time. Once she intimated that she loved only two Germans, Heinz Henseler and me. Such was the sad reality which I respected. On another occasion, when we talked about the limitation of people, she dryly concluded: „Eero does´nt talk and you are impulsive". That, too, was right – and helpful. I have been greatly enriched by working with Han and much I did just for love of her. Over the years in our Committee work, at first by fax and later by e-mail, countless letters have been exchanged. Again and again I tried to copy her simple and friendly style of writing a letter to whomever it was. Every so often I failed although it looked so simple. She would mention all facts, one by one, apparently no big deal; and yet, she always managed to make it a personal, friendly, letter full of concern. I believe, one of her secrets is that she never became sentimental.

Then she fell ill with the ulcer on her foot which stubbornly defied all efforts at healing. It seemed that for about one year she withdrew almost completely, turning inside herself, strongly determined eventually to get better. And her tenacious fight was successful for a while. She travelled again to the Conference of the IPA in Nice, in 2001, and in 2002 as Chair of the Sponsoring Committee to Belgrade, which was the group she helped most over the years. The same year she even participated, as teacher, in the newly established Seminar for East European Candidates in Palic, Yugoslavia. Then she became ill again. Shortly before her death we talked for quite a while on the telephone, exchanging views like always. She sounded well composed but had given up hope and said that she has had enough. I am sad that she died too early, not only for me but for the many to whom she was close, especially for her husband, children and grandchildren.

This obituary, originally adressed as a letter to Han´s husband Sjirk Groen, turned out to have a twofold goal. I wanted to tell him in which ways I will remember Han and, in doing so, I made up my mind once again to be sort of talking with her through writing about her. In this time Han Groen-Prakken, whom I miss very much, became close again.

Cologne/Germany, March, 5, 2004,

Johann Michael Rotmann, M.D.
former Chair-man of the East European Committee
the European Psychoanalytical Federation