Shakespeare & Freud in The Czech Republic
Commemorating Freud’s 170th Anniversary in Příbor, Czech Republic
May 7-13 2026
25 Continuing Education Credits
An Invitation to the Source
Our journey begins in Prague, a city poised at the cultural and intellectual crossroads of Europe—where history, myth, and modern thought converge. From here, we embark on both an intellectual inquiry and a physical pilgrimage, tracing the psychic terrain that gave rise to psychoanalysis itself.
This immersive experience follows the origins of the “talking cure,” guiding participants through the landscapes, texts, and memories that shaped Sigmund Freud’s earliest thinking. Timed to coincide with the 170th anniversary of Freud’s birth, the journey grants rare access to historic sites, private archives, and local commemorations unavailable to the public.
At the heart of the seminar is a rare interdisciplinary pairing:
A renowned Shakespeare scholar and a distinguished Freudian scholar lead an exploration of Freud’s 1899 paper “Screen Memories” alongside Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale, set in the same land where Freud was born mirroring the losses of the Freud family..
Together, we uncover how psychoanalysis and drama converge in a single, symbolic land—Bohemia—the mythic setting of Shakespeare’s play and the literal birthplace of Sigmund Freud.
Prague → Příbor: Entering the Landscape of Memory
We gather in Prague for a welcome breakfast and introductions before traveling together into Moravia, to the town of Příbor, Freud’s birthplace.
Though Freud left Příbor at the age of three, its cultural climate and economic realities profoundly shaped his early psyche. Beneath the idyllic screen memories of childhood lies a history of financial collapse, displacement, and the abrupt rupture of a middle-class life.
This setting becomes our living seminar room.
Family Mythologies & Economic Shadows
Příbor: The Landscape of Memory
Our discussions trace the parallels between Freud’s early experiences in Moravia and the central themes of The Winter’s Tale: exile, loss, rupture, and the long passage of time required for restoration.
Freud’s remembered “yellow flowers” are examined not as nostalgia, but as symbolic coverings for economic upheaval and social change in the 1850s—revealing how memory reshapes trauma into something survivable.
Screen Memories
Led by Freudian scholar Tom DeRose, we engage deeply with Freud’s 1899 paper “Screen Memories,” examining how personal memory disguises unbearable truth.
Seminar Focus
How memory functions as psychic protection
The hidden narrative of bankruptcy and displacement
Childhood recollection as symbolic architecture rather than historical fact
The Link
We connect Freud’s early memories to Shakespeare’s exploration of “the wide gap of time” in The Winter’s Tale, revealing how loss becomes legible only through distance, narrative, and return.
Exclusive Program features
The McAdam Freud House: Exclusive sessions held in the home and gallery of the late Jane McAdam Freud, exploring her work on "the return" and ancestral identity.
Birthplace Sessions: A private tour and seminar session inside the room where Sigmund Freud was born in 1856.
Theatrical Workshops: Actor and scholar Paul O’Mahoney leads immersive explorations of The Winter’s Tale, focusing on the "miraculous return" of the lost mother and the healing of old family wounds.
Social Dreaming: Morning sessions to share and analyze "communal dreams" in the very environment where the study of dreams was first rooted.
Guided Reflective Walks: Walking through the meadows and hills of Příbor that Freud recalled in his later years as his "earliest garden."
The Winter’s Tale
With Shakespeare expert Paul O’Mahony, we follow a play defined by jealousy, exile, and the arduous work of repair. Central to our study is the image of the statue brought to life—a metaphor for recovering lost family histories and healing long-buried wounds.
The Synchronicity
Shakespeare set his tale of reconciliation in Bohemia. We study it in the very land where Freud’s own story began.
The Legacy of Jane McAdam Freud
A deeply personal highlight of the seminar is private access to the house and gallery of the late Jane McAdam Freud, a dear friend of the host and a profound artist in her own right.
Jane’s work bridges the clinical past and the living present. When Příbor asked for a Freud to return “home,” Jane answered—using sculpture and form to reclaim both her Czech heritage and her lineage as Freud’s great-granddaughter.
Private Experiences
Exclusive tour of the McAdam Freud House
Guided exploration of current gallery installations
Dialogue on lineage, memory, and artistic inheritance
We examine how Jane’s work speaks to generational legacy—how the living can find something vital within what history has left behind.
Exile, Identity and the Creative Act
Both Freud’s family and Shakespeare’s characters suffer the trauma of displacement. We explore how exile shapes identity—and how art, analysis, and language become acts of reclamation.
Jane McAdam Freud’s work offers a powerful contemporary response: art as a means of restoring what history fractured.
The Talking Cure & The Dramatic Monologue
Participants experience the Shakespearean soliloquy alongside the psychoanalytic practice of free association, discovering how both seek to give voice to the unconscious. Speech becomes transformation.
As we commemorate 170 years of Freud, we look at how the "dying" of the family's old life in the Czech Republic led to the "newborn" science of the mind. This seminar is a celebration of that cycle: how exile leads to discovery, and how the past, when revisited, can bring about a profound sense of restoration. By walking the soil where Freud first dreamed, and speaking the words Shakespeare set in this land, we open a singular path toward intellectual depth and personal restoration.
Prague & Příbor, Czech Republic | May 2026
A 170th Anniversary Commemorative Expedition
“Thou met’st with things dying; I with things newborn.- The Winter’s Tale
The Oracle of Time
“It is required you do awake your faith.”— The Winter’s Tale, Act V”
Itinerary Highlights
An Intellectual & Intimate Exploration
Private Access
Inside Freud’s birth home and museum—a symbolic return to the source.
Social Dreaming Sessions
Collaborative morning dreaming within the historic setting where psychoanalysis began.
Dramatic Immersion
Group readings and theatrical workshops exploring “the return of the repressed” through performance. Step into the roles of The Winter’s Tale, performing its drama of projection, loss, and redemption in the heart of Bohemia, where Freud’s story began.
Artistic Reflection
Guided workshops in the McAdam Freud Gallery examining sculpture, ancestry, and memory.
Beyond the Seminar Room:
Moravian Immersion
Guided visits to medieval castles and historic towns
Curated walks through Bohemian woods and hills
Příbor: Join the town-wide celebrations marking the 170th anniversary of Sigmund Freud’s birth.
Be welcomed into the legacy of Jane McAdam Freud, Sigmund Freud’s great-granddaughter, for a special evening of art, dialogue, and dinner in her home and gallery.
Guided throughout by Freudian and literary scholar Tom DeRose, with focused study of Freud’s seminal writings, Shakespeare scholar and actor/ director Paul O’Mahony and accompanied by Dr. Brown your host, whose deep historical knowledge of Freud and his world brings the journey vividly to life as you quite literally walk in Freud’s footsteps.
Who Is This For?
- Those seeking a deeply meaningful travel experience that fuses history, art, and psychology.
- Shakespeare enthusiasts who want the plays and characters to come alive where they are from!
- Mental health professionals looking to earn CE credits while expanding your understanding of Freud’s legacy within its cultural and artistic context.
- Lovers of art, literature & the psyche.
- World travelers & lifelong learners who want to join a global community!
- Those with a deep ionterest in history and the intersection of Shakespeare and psychoanalysis
*No prior knowledge or experience required, just a spirit of inquiry and openness to discovery.
What Will You Gain?
Discuss the Mechanics of Screen Memories and the theoretical framework of Sigmund Freud’s 1899 paper "Screen Memories,"
Discuss the Parallels Between Drama and Psychoanalysis and the thematic overlaps between Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale and the historical background of the Freud family which shaped psychoanalysis. "wide gap of time" required to process psychic rupture, exile, and the eventual restoration of the lost object.
Describe and discuss Clinical Theory within Geographic and Socio-Economic History: Examine the impact of Freud’s early environment in Moravia—including the 1850s economic collapse and subsequent family displacement—on the development of the "talking cure," evaluating how physical landscapes influence the architecture of the unconscious.
Apply Psychoanalytic Concepts to Narrative and Performance: Utilize theatrical workshops and textual analysis to explore the clinical metaphor of the "statue brought to life," interpreting how the dramatization of family wounds facilitates a deeper understanding of the "return of the repressed" and ancestral identity.
Describe and apply Social Dreaming and and its application to modern therapeutic practices.
What’s Included?
– All seminars
– Accommodations in a small inn
– One group lunch and two group dinners (beverages excluded)
- Welcome breakfast in Prague
– All excursions
– Visits to The Freud Museum Pribor
- Visits and workshops in Jane Mcadam Freud’s home and gallery
- Transportation from Prague to Pribor
Lecturers
Dr. Leslee Brown, PhD
Dr. Brown is President and Director of Mind Body Passport Inc. designing and leading international trips for adult professionals, offering continuing education credits worldwide. Dr. Brown's interests are multi-faceted, engaging topics of psychology, culture, art, psychoanalysis and social dreaming. She is passionate about weaving many disciplines and interests together and creating an atmosphere of growth and learning. Travel opens ones mind and creates change bringing new perspectives on living life. She also served as The Director of International Seminars and Gastprofessor at Sigmund Freud University, Vienna. International psychology and developing “psychologists without borders” has become her focus. Dr. Brown has been in private practice for over twenty years, has been a research psychologist for The Neurologic Institute and has served on faculty at UCLA Medical School teaching psychology and rapport building techniques to medical students. Dr. Brown was also assistant professor at The Chicago School and Director of Centers for International Studies. Leslee lives and works part time in in Los Angeles, part time in Paris, and the rest of the time is traveling the world.
Paul O’Mahony
Paul O’Mahony is an actor, director and writer based in the UK. As an actor his credits include productions with the Royal Shakespeare Company, English Touring Theatre and The Orange Tree Theatre. He has played leading Shakespearean roles in Much Ado About Nothing, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Richard III and Julius Caesar, and has run multiple Shakespeare projects with leading universities in the US.
He is the artistic director of Out of Chaos theatre company, whose work has toured the world and won multiple awards. He played Macbeth in their recent production of Macbeth, which will be touring the UK and the USA in 2026. Upcoming directing credits include The Problem with the Seventh Year and The Tempest. He was an Associate of Hellenic Studies at Harvard’s Centre for Hellenic Studies where his work included creating Reading Greek Tragedy Online. His writing includes the translation and adaption of three Greek tragedies into The House of Atreus (Barbican, London) and A History of Sound (Vache Baroque).
Tom DeRose
Tom DeRose is Research Manager at the Freud Museum London. He founded the Freud Museum staff and volunteer reading group in 2015, which has been meeting weekly ever since. His research explores the philosophical aspects and cultural implications of Freud’s theories, and his most recent publications include an article comparing the work of Freud, Wagner, and Nietzsche for the Wagner Journal (July 2017). He is currently writing chapters on psychoanalysis and music for The Bloomsbury Handbook of Literature and Psychoanalysis (forthcoming).
Costs
EARLY BIRD DISCOUNT SAVE $400, $4152 Register before January 20 ($4552 after January 20th)
Payment plan: $1000 deposit + four monthly payments of $888
Need a custom payment plan? Email us at info@mindbodypasspot.com
Want to earn $100 – or more? Refer a friend or colleague who signs up, and we’ll send you $100 for each referral.
Want your trip for free? Gather six people who sign up for the same course, and we’ll give you yours for FREE!
Questions? Contact Dr. Leslee Brown at info@mindbodypassport.com for a free one-on-one consultation.
Mind Body Passport is approved by the California Psychological Association to provide continuing professional education for psychologists. Mind Body Passport maintains responsibility for this program and its content.
Mind Body Passport Inc. is also recognized as a CAMFT-approved Continuing Education Provider. Certificate awarded upon successful completion.
CE credits are calculated based on actual lecture/seminar time. Outside activities, tours and cultural programs are not included.
Health & Safety
Travel is our greatest passion. The safety and well-being of Mind Body Passport Inc. participants (as well as our team, suppliers and others) is of paramount importance to us.
For admission to our courses, Mind Body Passport Inc. recommends all participants be fully vaccinated with Covid, flu and other relevant vaccines.
Refunds
Travel medical insurance is mandatory. We recommend insurance that includes Covid- related delays and changes.Your insurance must cover personal injury, medical treatment, repatriation, and evacuation expenses. We also recommend that the insurance cover personal property and trip cancellation. Trip cancellation insurance may be the only means of receiving reimbursement for flights and other non-refundable expenses in the event the Trip is cancelled, postponed, interrupted, rescheduled, for any reason, by you or us.
Once fees are paid, absent Mind Body Passport’s approval in its sole discretion, no refunds will be issued. MBP reserves the right to cancel any trip or any portion thereof for any reason it deems appropriate including but not limited to, low enrollment numbers, political instability and/or health concerns.