Trying to present now, from the perspective of years, from the point where I am now closer to the end than the beginning of my analytical and life path, its twists and turns, I reach back in my mind to the very beginnings of my history and the history of my loved ones. The first part of this history is not based on my own memories, but on stories, accounts and photographs. On their basis, and from the perspective of further, now my own, experiences, observations and interpretations, I undertake a reconstruction, or perhaps, using Freud's distinction, rather a construction of my history. As in the psychoanalytic process, I try to understand the history of which I was a part and which created less. The reader will easily notice that my history, like the history of our country, is not continuous, calm, simple and linear. There are blank spots and breaks in it, uprisings and falls, displacements and oppressions, as well as emigration - internal and external.

In describing my story, as a psychoanalyst I am fully aware that I am only creating subsequent versions of it, that the 'true' story objectively does not really exist. I can hope that through reflection and supplementation, subsequent versions become fuller and truer. However, one should not close one's eyes to the possibility that they may also be subject to tendencies towards simplification, embellishment or, of necessity, concealment. These inevitable distortions are dictated by one's own preferences and ... interests. We should also take into account the process of Nachträglichkeit (après coup) described by Freud, through which past events and stories take on meaning when considered in the light of a later perspective. This process, however, can be useful if we want to understand the conditions underlying the formation of the later analytic personality. In bearing witness to my analytic path, I can therefore, at best, attempt, as Bion says, "to make the best of a bad job."