Sándor Ferenczi (; 7 July 1873 – 22 May 1933) was a Hungarian
psychoanalyst
PsychoanalysisFrom Greek: and is a set of theories and techniques of research to discover unconscious processes and their influence on conscious thought, emotion and behaviour. Based on dream interpretation, psychoanalysis is also a talk th ...
, a key theorist of the
psychoanalytic school and a close associate of
Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud ( ; ; born Sigismund Schlomo Freud; 6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for evaluating and treating psychopathology, pathologies seen as originating fro ...
.
Biography
Born Sándor Fraenkel to Baruch Fränkel and Rosa Eibenschütz, both
Polish Jews
The history of the Jews in Poland dates back at least 1,000 years. For centuries, Poland was home to the largest and most significant Jews, Jewish community in the world. Poland was a principal center of Jewish culture, because of the long pe ...
, he later
magyarized his surname to ''Ferenczi''.
As a result of his psychiatric work, he came to believe that his patients' accounts of
sexual abuse as children were truthful, having verified those accounts through other patients in the same family. This was a major reason for his eventual disputes with Sigmund Freud.
Prior to this conclusion, he was notable as a psychoanalyst for working with the most difficult of patients and for developing a theory of more active intervention than is usual for psychoanalytic practice. During the early 1920s, criticizing Freud's "classical" method of neutral interpretation, Ferenczi collaborated with
Otto Rank
Otto Rank (; ; né Rosenfeld; 22 April 1884 – 31 October 1939) was an Austrian psychoanalyst, writer, and philosopher. Born in Vienna, he was one of Sigmund Freud's closest colleagues for 20 years, a prolific writer on psychoanalytic themes, ...
to create a "here-and-now" psychotherapy that, through Rank's personal influence, led the American
Carl Rogers to conceptualize person-centered therapy.
Ferenczi has found some favour in modern times among the followers of
Jacques Lacan
Jacques Marie Émile Lacan (, ; ; 13 April 1901 – 9 September 1981) was a French psychoanalyst and psychiatrist. Described as "the most controversial psycho-analyst since Sigmund Freud, Freud", Lacan gave The Seminars of Jacques Lacan, year ...
as well as among
relational psychoanalysts in the United States. Relational analysts read Ferenczi as anticipating their own clinical emphasis on mutuality (
intimacy
An intimate relationship is an interpersonal relationship that involves emotional or physical closeness between people and may include sexual intimacy and feelings of romance or love. Intimate relationships are interdependent, and the member ...
),
intersubjectivity, and the importance of the analyst's
countertransference. Ferenczi's work has strongly influenced theory and praxis of the interpersonal-relational theory of American psychoanalysis, as typified by psychoanalysts at the
William Alanson White Institute.
Ferenczi was president of the
International Psychoanalytical Association from 1918 to 1919.
Ernest Jones, a biographer of Freud, termed Ferenczi as "mentally ill" at the end of his life, famously ignoring Ferenczi's struggle with
pernicious anemia, which killed him in 1933. Though desperately ill with the then-untreatable disease, Ferenczi managed to deliver his most famous paper, "Confusion of Tongues" to the 12th International Psycho-Analytic Congress in
Wiesbaden
Wiesbaden (; ) is the capital of the German state of Hesse, and the second-largest Hessian city after Frankfurt am Main. With around 283,000 inhabitants, it is List of cities in Germany by population, Germany's 24th-largest city. Wiesbaden form ...
,
Germany
Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...
, on 4 September 1932.
Ferenczi's reputation was revived in 2002 by publication of ''Disappearing and Reviving: Sandor Ferenczi in the History of Psychoanalysis''. One of the book's chapters dealt with the nature of the relationship between Freud and Ferenczi.
Ferenczi's main ideas
Activity in psychoanalytic therapy
Contrary to Freud's opinion of therapeutic
abstinence
Abstinence is the practice of self-enforced restraint from indulging in bodily activities that are widely experienced as giving pleasure. Most frequently, the term refers to sexual abstinence, but it can also mean abstinence from alcohol (drug), ...
, Ferenczi advocated a more active role for the analyst. For example, instead of the relative "passivity" of a listening analyst encouraging the patient to freely associate, Ferenczi used to curtail certain responses, verbal and non-verbal alike, on the part of the analysand so as to allow suppressed thoughts and feelings to emerge. described in a case study how he used a kind of
behavioral activation (uncommon in the psychoanalytic therapy at that time) when he asked an opera singer with performance anxiety to “perform” during a therapy session and in this way to struggle with her fears.
Clinical empathy in psychoanalysis
Ferenczi believed the empathic response during therapy was the basis of clinical interaction. He based his intervention on responding to the subjective experience of the analysand. If the more traditional opinion
was that the analyst had the role of a physician, administering a treatment to the patient based upon diagnostic judgment of psychopathology, Ferenczi wanted the analysand to become a co-participant in an encounter created by the therapeutic dyad. This emphasis on empathic reciprocity during the therapeutic encounter was an important contribution to the evolution of psychoanalysis. Ferenczi also believed that self-disclosure of the analyst is an important therapeutic reparative force. The practice of including the therapist's personality in therapy resulted in the development of the idea of mutual encounter: the therapist is allowed to discuss some content from his/her own life and thoughts, as long as it is relevant to the therapy. This is in contrast to the Freudian therapeutic abstinence according to which the therapist should not involve his/her personal life with the therapy, and should remain neutral. The mutual encounter is a precedent for the psychoanalytic theory of two-person psychology.
The "confusion of tongues" theory of trauma
Ferenczi believed that the persistent traumatic effect of chronic overstimulation, deprivation, or empathic failure (a term further elaborated by
Heinz Kohut) during childhood is what causes neurotic, character, borderline and psychotic disorders. According to this concept, trauma develops as a result of the sexual seduction of a child by a parent or authority figure. The confusion of tongues occurs when the child pretends to be the spouse of the parent. The pathological adult interprets this infantile and innocent game according to his adult "passion tongue" and then forces the child to conform to his passion tongue. The adult uses a tongue the child does not know, and interprets the child's innocent game (his infantile tongue) according to his disturbed perspective. For example, a father is playing with his little girl. During their common game, she offers him the role of her husband and wants him to sleep with her just as he sleeps with her mother. The pathological father misinterprets this childish offer, and touches his daughter in an inappropriate manner while they are in bed together. Here, the child spoke her innocent childish tongue, and the father interpreted her offer with his passionate adult sexual tongue.
The adult also attempts to convince the child that the lust on his part is really the love for which the child yearns. Ferenczi generalized the idea of trauma to emotional neglect, physical maltreatment, and empathic failure. The prominent manifestation of these disturbances would be the sexual abuse.
A
Lacanian reading of Ferenczi's 'Confusion of Tongues' was published in 2018 by Miguel Gutiérrez-Peláez.
Raluca Soreanu has investigated the metapsychological implications of 'Confusion of Tongues' the ''Clinical Diary'' for a theory of psychic splitting.
''Regressus ad uterum''
In ''Thalassa: A Theory of Genitality'' (, 1924), Ferenczi suggested that the wish to return to the womb () and the comfort of its
amniotic fluids symbolizes a wish to return to the origin of life, the sea. This idea of an "uterine and thalassal regression" became a feature of the so-called Budapest School, up to the disciple
Michael Balint
Michael Balint ( ; 3 December 1896 – 31 December 1970) was a Hungarian psychoanalyst who spent most of his adult life in England. He was a proponent of the object relations school.
Life
Balint was born Mihály Mór Bergsmann in Budapes ...
and his 1937 paper on "Primary
bject-ove". According to Ferenczi, all forms of human practice, especially sex, were an attempt to reestablish genitalia with the intrauterine experience – a theory which resonated with architect
Richard Neutra
Richard Joseph Neutra ( ; 8 April 1892 – 16 April 1970) was an Austrian-American architect. Living and building for most of his career in Southern California, he came to be considered a prominent and important modernist architect. His most ...
and may have inspired, or supplemented, Neutra's fascination with uterine suspension. At the same time, ''Thalassa'' is embedded in discourses of popular biology, which are reinterpreted by Ferenczi by using psychoanalytic models. Far from simply leaning on
Ernst Haeckel
Ernst Heinrich Philipp August Haeckel (; ; 16 February 1834 – 9 August 1919) was a German zoologist, natural history, naturalist, eugenics, eugenicist, Philosophy, philosopher, physician, professor, marine biology, marine biologist and artist ...
,
Wilhelm Bölsche, and post-
Lamarckism
Lamarckism, also known as Lamarckian inheritance or neo-Lamarckism, is the notion that an organism can pass on to its offspring physical characteristics that the parent organism acquired through use or disuse during its lifetime. It is also calle ...
to bolster the psychoanalytic paradigm, Ferenczi defamiliarizes these popular discourses just at a time when they were starting to inform eugenicist projects.
In popular culture
Karl Graboshas portrays Ferenczi in episode 13 of season 15 "
Murdoch on the Couch" (January 10, 2022) of the
Canadian television
Television in Canada officially began with the sign-on of the nation's first television stations in Montreal and Toronto in 1952. As with most media in Canada, the television industry, and the television programming available in that country, ...
period
detective series ''
Murdoch Mysteries
''Murdoch Mysteries'' is a Canadian television drama series that premiered on Citytv on January 20, 2008, and currently airs on CBC. The series is based on characters from the ''Detective Murdoch'' novels by Maureen Jennings and stars Yannick ...
''.
See also
*
Amphimixis
*
Identification with the aggressor
*
Little Arpad
*
Narcissistic abuse
*
Otto Rank
Otto Rank (; ; né Rosenfeld; 22 April 1884 – 31 October 1939) was an Austrian psychoanalyst, writer, and philosopher. Born in Vienna, he was one of Sigmund Freud's closest colleagues for 20 years, a prolific writer on psychoanalytic themes, ...
References
Further reading
*''Ferenczi's Turn in Psychoanalysis'', Peter L. Rudnytsky, New York University Press, 2000, Paperback, 450 pages,
*''Final Contributions to the Problems & Methods of Psycho-Analysis'', Sandor Ferenczi, H. Karnac Books, Limited, Hardback, 1994, .
*''Development of Psychoanalysis (Classics in Psychoanalysis, Monograph 4)'',
Otto Rank
Otto Rank (; ; né Rosenfeld; 22 April 1884 – 31 October 1939) was an Austrian psychoanalyst, writer, and philosopher. Born in Vienna, he was one of Sigmund Freud's closest colleagues for 20 years, a prolific writer on psychoanalytic themes, ...
and Sandor Ferenczi, International Universities Press, Inc, 1986, Hardback, .
*''First Contributions to Psycho-Analysis'', Sandor Ferenczi, translated by
Ernest Jones, H. Karnac Books, Limited, 1994, Hardback, .
*''Sandor Ferenczi: Reconsidering Active Intervention'',
Martin Stanton,
Jason Aronson Publishers, 1991, Hardcover, 1991, .
*''Legacy of Sandor Ferenczi'', Edited by Adrienne Harris and Lewis Aron, Analytic Press, 1996, Hardback, .
*The Legacy of Sandor Ferenczi: From Ghost to Ancestor. Edited by Adrienne Harris and Steven Kuchuck, Routledge, 2015, Paperback,
*Jiménez Avello, José. ''Para leer a Ferenczi.'' Madrid: Biblioteca Nueva,1998
*Jiménez Avello, José . ''L’île des rêves de Sándor Ferenczi.'' Paris: campagneprmiere/, 2013 (''La isla de sueños de Sándor Ferenczi.'' Madrid: Biblioteca Nueva, 2006)
*Antonelli, Giorgio, ''Il Mare di Ferenczi'', Di Renzo Editore, Roma, 1996
*
Paul Roazen: ''Elma Laurvik, Ferenczi's Step-Daughter''from the pages of PSYCHOMEDIA
''The Correspondence of Sigmund Freud and Sándor Ferenczi, Volume 1, 1908-1914'' Harvard University Press
Harvard University Press (HUP) is an academic publishing house established on January 13, 1913, as a division of Harvard University. It is a member of the Association of University Presses. Its director since 2017 is George Andreou.
The pres ...
''The Correspondence of Sigmund Freud and Sándor Ferenczi, Volume 2, 1914-1919'' Harvard University Press
Harvard University Press (HUP) is an academic publishing house established on January 13, 1913, as a division of Harvard University. It is a member of the Association of University Presses. Its director since 2017 is George Andreou.
The pres ...
''The Correspondence of Sigmund Freud and Sándor Ferenczi, Volume 3, 1920-1933'' Harvard University Press
Harvard University Press (HUP) is an academic publishing house established on January 13, 1913, as a division of Harvard University. It is a member of the Association of University Presses. Its director since 2017 is George Andreou.
The pres ...
''The Clinical Diary of Sándor Ferenczi'' by Sándor Ferenczi. Edited by Judith Dupont, translated by
Michael Balint
Michael Balint ( ; 3 December 1896 – 31 December 1970) was a Hungarian psychoanalyst who spent most of his adult life in England. He was a proponent of the object relations school.
Life
Balint was born Mihály Mór Bergsmann in Budapes ...
and Nicola Zarday Jackson,
Harvard University Press
Harvard University Press (HUP) is an academic publishing house established on January 13, 1913, as a division of Harvard University. It is a member of the Association of University Presses. Its director since 2017 is George Andreou.
The pres ...
.
*
*
*
*
Raluca Soreanu, Jakob Staberg, Jenny Willner: ''Ferenczi Dialogues: On Trauma and Catastrophe''.Leuven University Press 2023. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv2q49zwj
External links
Ferenczi InstituteBiographyat the Sándor Ferenczi Society, Budapest
Academy for the Study of the Psychoanalytic Arts, article written by Judith E. Vida
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ferenczi, Sandor
1873 births
1933 deaths
People from Miskolc
19th-century Hungarian people
20th-century Hungarian people
Hungarian Jews
Hungarian psychiatrists
Hungarian psychotherapists
Hungarian psychoanalysts
Jewish physicians
Jewish psychoanalysts
Analysands of Sigmund Freud
University of Vienna alumni
Members of the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society
Psychiatrists from Austria-Hungary