1st Edition

Ferenczi’s Influence on Contemporary Psychoanalytic Traditions Lines of Development—-Evolution of Theory and Practice over the Decades

    This collection covers all the topics relevant for understanding the importance of Sándor Ferenczi and his influence on contemporary psychoanalysis. Pre-eminent Ferenczi scholars were solicited to contribute succint reviews of their fields of expertise.

    The book is divided in five sections. 'The historico-biographical' describes Ferenczi's childhood and student days, his marriage, brief analyses with Freud, his correspondences and contributions to daily press in Budapest, list of his patients' true identities, and a paper about his untimely death. 'The development of Ferenczi's ideas' reviews his ideas before his first encounter with psychoanalysis, his relationship with peers, friendship with Groddeck, emancipation from Freud, and review of the importance of his Clinical Diary. The third section reviews Ferenczi's clinical concepts and work: trauma, unwelcome child, wise baby, identification with aggressor, mutual analysis, and many others. In 'Echoes', we follow traces of Ferenczi's influence on virtually all traditions in contemporary psychoanalysis: interpersonal, independent, Kleinian, Lacanian, relational, etc.

    I: Biographical-Historical; Introduction; 1: Amidst hills, creeks and books Sándor Ferenczi's childhood in Miskolc; 2: Ferenczi's Budapest; 3: Ferenczi before Freud; 4: Ferenczi and Freud: Subservient disciple to independent thinker; 5: Ferenczi's analyses with Freud; 6: A fateful quadrangle: Sándor Ferenczi, Sigmund Freud, Gizella Palos-Ferenczi, and Elma Palos-Laurvik; 7: Ferenczi in and out of correspondence; 8: Ferenczi and the foundation of the international and Hungarian psychoanalytical societies; 9: Ferenczi in early psychoanalytic circles; 10: Ferenczi's work on war neuroses and its historical context; 11: The figure of Sándor Ferenczi in representative organs of the Hungarian press between 1910 and 1933; 12: Georg Groddeck's influential friendship with Sándor Ferenczi; 13: Ferenczi's patients and their contribution to his legacy; 14: Some things you may want to know before reading Sándor Ferenczi's Clinical Diary; 15: Ferenczi's untimely death; II: Clinical; Introduction; 16: Ferenczi's paradigm shift in trauma theory; 17: Ferenczi's concept of the unwelcome child; 18: Ferenczi's concept of the “wise baby”; 19: Psychological enslavement through identification with the aggressor; 20: Splitting, fragmentation, and psychic agony; 21: Regressing to reality: Finding and listening to the inner world of the traumatised child; 22: Ferenczi's experiments with technique; 23: Ferenczi's dialogue of unconsciouses, mutual analysis, and the analyst's use of self in the shaping of contemporary relational technique; 24: Countertransference and the person of the therapist; III: Echoes; Introduction; 25: The Ferenczi—Balint filiation; 26: Ferenczi and the Independents—Bowlby, Fairbairn, and Winnicott: Towards a third way in British psychoanalysis; 27: Melanie Klein's development of, and divergence from, Sándor Ferenczi's ideas; 28: Sándor Ferenczi and Jacques Lacan: Between orthodoxy and dissidence; 29: Mind your tongue! On Ferenczi's confusion of tongues, Laplanche's general theory of seduction, and other misunderstandings; 30: The influence of Ferenczi on Interpersonal Psychoanalysis; 31: Psychoanalysis and psychosis: Ferenczi's influence at Chestnut Lodge; 32: Echoes of Ferenczi in psychoanalytic self psychology: Ancestor and bridge; 33: Ferenczi's contributions to relational psychoanalysis: The pursuit of mutuality; 34: The influence of Ferenczi's thinking on child psychoanalysis; IV: Applications and Extensions; Introduction; 35: “Eat, bird, or die!” The contribution of Sándor Ferenczi's ideas to the critique of authoritarianism; 36: Against violence: Ferenczi and liberal socialism; 37: From individual to massive social trauma; 38: Hello Baby. In the footprints of Sándor Ferenczi: Welcoming a child into a contemporary family; 39: Sándor Ferenczi's impact on clinical social work and education; 40: Gender, sexuality, and the maternal; 41: Confusion of tongues as a source of verifiable hypotheses; Epilogue

    Biography

    Aleksandar Dimitrijevic, PhD, is interim professor of psychoanalysis and clinical psychology at the International Psychoanalytic University, Berlin, Germany.

    Gabriele Cassullo is a psychologist, psychotherapist, doctor in research in human sciences and interim professor in psychology at the Department of Psychology, University of Turin. He researches and publishes on the history, theory, and technique of psychoanalysis.

    Jay Frankel is an Adjunct Clinical Associate Professor and Clinical Consultant in the New York University Postdoctoral Program in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis; Faculty at the Institute for Psychoanalytic Training and Research, and at the Trauma Studies Program at the Manhattan Institute for Psychoanalysis, both in New York.

    "The publication of Ferenczi’s Influence on Contemporary Psychoanalytic Traditions is a quantum leap in psychoanalytic historiography and a particularly important advance for "the Ferenczi renaissance" that has blossomed since the late 1980s. Aleksandar Dimitrijevic, Gabriele Cassullo, and Jay Frankel have produced a luminous compilation of state-of-the-art research on Sandor Ferenczi's life, work, and most significantly, on his enduring influence on psychoanalytic theory and practice. Comprehensive and authoritative, this expert collection will be a rich source of scholarship for years to come." --Lewis Aron, Ph.D., director, New York University Postdoctoral Program in Psychotherapy & Psychoanalysis

    "Moving between tradition and innovation, this book provides a comprehensive overview as well as new findings and incisive thinking to restore Ferenczi to his proper place in the history of psychoanalysis. This wonderfully rich book makes clear that we would not be the psychoanalysts we are today, if Sandor Ferenczi had not been the thinker, the clinician and the person he was." --Professor Peter Fonagy, OBE FMedSci FBA DipPsy FAcSS PhD, Chief Executive, The Anna Freud Centre, Professor of Contemporary Psychoanalysis and Developmental Science, Head of the Research Department of Clinical, Educational and Health Psychology, University College London

    "This extraordinarily comprehensive volume, with contributions by a galaxy of leading scholars and clinicians, will become an indispensable resource for all future work on Ferenczi, the most important, influential, and inspiring forerunner of contemporary self psychology, relational psychoanalysis, and trauma theory." --Peter L. Rudnytsky, University of Florida and Chicago Institute for Psychoanalysis