TBILISI 1979 YEAR SYMPOSIUM ON THE UNCONSCIOUS – LOOKING BACK

In 1979 a large international symposium dedicated to the problem of unconscious was held in Tbilisi. More than 150 visitors from 17 foreign countries and about the same member from different scientific centers of the former Soviet Union took part in its work. These ciphers may not sound very impressive now but taking into account the years when the Soviet Union was still separated from outer world by the so called “iron curtain”, the symposium can indeed be considered a grand event. Foreign participants came not only from the countries of “socialist camp”, but also from Western states (Austria, Canada, England, Ireland, Italy, France, USA, Western Germany). One more notable thing is that a lot of researchers working in the sphere of psychoanalysis visited Tbilisi. Remembering the fact that psychoanalysis, even at that period, stayed as the main ideological “scarecrow” for “Soviet psychology”, the symposium seemed really unique and unprecedented.