Sándor Ferenczi
Encyclopedia
Sándor Ferenczi was a Hungarian psychoanalyst
, a key theorist of the psychoanalytic school and a close associate of Sigmund Freud
.
Jews
, he later magyar
ized 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
to create a "here-and-now" psychotherapy that, through Rank's personal influence, led the American Carl Rogers
to conceptualize person-centered therapy (Kramer 1995).
Ferenczi has found some favour in modern times among the followers of Jacques Lacan
as well as among relational
psychoanalysts in the United States. Relational analysts read Ferenczi as anticipating their own clinical emphasis on mutuality (intimacy), 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
, Germany
, 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.
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 (ibid.). The mutual encounter is a precedent for the psychoanalytic theory of two-person psychology.
) during childhood is what causes neurotic, character, borderline and psychotic disorders (ibid.). 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.
Psychoanalysis
Psychoanalysis is a psychological theory developed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries by Austrian neurologist Sigmund Freud. Psychoanalysis has expanded, been criticized and developed in different directions, mostly by some of Freud's former students, such as Alfred Adler and Carl Gustav...
, a key theorist of the psychoanalytic school and a close associate of Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud , born Sigismund Schlomo Freud , was an Austrian neurologist who founded the discipline of psychoanalysis...
.
Biography
Born Sándor Fränkel to Baruch Fränkel and Rosa Eibenschütz, both PolishPoles
thumb|right|180px|The state flag of [[Poland]] as used by Polish government and diplomatic authoritiesThe Polish people, or Poles , are a nation indigenous to Poland. They are united by the Polish language, which belongs to the historical Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages of Central Europe...
Jews
Jews
The Jews , also known as the Jewish people, are a nation and ethnoreligious group originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation...
, he later magyar
Hungarian language
Hungarian is a Uralic language, part of the Ugric group. With some 14 million speakers, it is one of the most widely spoken non-Indo-European languages in Europe....
ized 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
Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud , born Sigismund Schlomo Freud , was an Austrian neurologist who founded the discipline of psychoanalysis...
.
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
Otto Rank was an Austrian psychoanalyst, writer, teacher and therapist. Born in Vienna as Otto Rosenfeld, he was one of Sigmund Freud's closest colleagues for 20 years, a prolific writer on psychoanalytic themes, an editor of the two most important analytic journals, managing director of Freud's...
to create a "here-and-now" psychotherapy that, through Rank's personal influence, led the American Carl Rogers
Carl Rogers
Carl Ransom Rogers was an influential American psychologist and among the founders of the humanistic approach to psychology...
to conceptualize person-centered therapy (Kramer 1995).
Ferenczi has found some favour in modern times among the followers of Jacques Lacan
Jacques Lacan
Jacques Marie Émile Lacan was a French psychoanalyst and psychiatrist who made prominent contributions to psychoanalysis and philosophy, and has been called "the most controversial psycho-analyst since Freud". Giving yearly seminars in Paris from 1953 to 1981, Lacan influenced France's...
as well as among relational
Relational psychoanalysis
Relational psychoanalysis is a school of psychoanalysis in the United States that emphasizes the role of real and imagined relationships with others in mental disorder and psychotherapy...
psychoanalysts in the United States. Relational analysts read Ferenczi as anticipating their own clinical emphasis on mutuality (intimacy), intersubjectivity
Intersubjectivity
Intersubjectivity is a term used in philosophy, psychology, sociology and anthropology to describe a condition somewhere between subjectivity and objectivity, one in which a phenomenon is personally experienced but by more than one subject....
, and the importance of the analyst's countertransference
Countertransference
Countertransferenceis defined as redirection of a psychotherapist's feelings toward a client—or, more generally, as a therapist's emotional entanglement with a client.-Early formulations:...
. 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
William Alanson White Institute
The William Alanson White Institute, founded in 1946, is an institution for training psychoanalysts and psychotherapists. It is located in New York City, USA, on the Upper West Side, in the Clara Thompson building....
.
Ferenczi was president of the International Psychoanalytical Association from 1918 to 1919.
Ernest Jones
Alfred Ernest Jones was a British neurologist and psychoanalyst, and Sigmund Freud’s official biographer. Jones was the first English-speaking practitioner of psychoanalysis and became its leading exponent in the English-speaking world where, as President of both the British Psycho-Analytical...
, a biographer of Freud, termed Ferenczi as "mentally ill" at the end of his life, famously ignoring Ferenczi's struggle with pernicious anemia
Pernicious anemia
Pernicious anemia is one of many types of the larger family of megaloblastic anemias...
, 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
Wiesbaden is a city in southwest Germany and the capital of the federal state of Hesse. It has about 275,400 inhabitants, plus approximately 10,000 United States citizens...
, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
, 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.
Activity in psychoanalytic therapy
Contrary to Freud’s opinion of therapeutic abstinence, Ferenczi advocated a more active role for the analyst. For example, instead of the relative “passivity” of a listening analyst encouraging the patient to free 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. Ferenczi (1980) 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 (Rachman, 2007).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 opinionwas 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 (ibid.). 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 KohutHeinz Kohut
Heinz Kohut was an Austrian-born American psychoanalyst best known for his development of Self psychology, an influential school of thought within psychodynamic/psychoanalytic theory which helped transform the modern practice of analytic and dynamic treatment approaches.-Early life:Kohut was born...
) during childhood is what causes neurotic, character, borderline and psychotic disorders (ibid.). 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.
Further reading
- Ferenczi's Turn in Psychoanalysis, Peter L. Rudnytsky, New York University Press, 2000, Paperback, 450 pages, ISBN 0814775454
- Final Contributions to the Problems & Methods of Psycho-Analysis, Sandor Ferenczi, H. Karnac Books, Limited, Hardback, 1994, ISBN 1855750872.
- Development of Psychoanalysis (Classics in Psychoanalysis, Monograph 4), Otto RankOtto RankOtto Rank was an Austrian psychoanalyst, writer, teacher and therapist. Born in Vienna as Otto Rosenfeld, he was one of Sigmund Freud's closest colleagues for 20 years, a prolific writer on psychoanalytic themes, an editor of the two most important analytic journals, managing director of Freud's...
and Sandor Ferenczi, International Universities Press, Inc, 1986, Hardback, ISBN 0823611973.
- First Contributions to Psycho-Analysis, Sandor Ferenczi, translated by Ernest JonesErnest JonesAlfred Ernest Jones was a British neurologist and psychoanalyst, and Sigmund Freud’s official biographer. Jones was the first English-speaking practitioner of psychoanalysis and became its leading exponent in the English-speaking world where, as President of both the British Psycho-Analytical...
, H. Karnac Books, Limited, 1994, Hardback, ISBN 1855750856.
- Sandor Ferenczi: Reconsidering Active Intervention, Martin Stanton, Jason AronsonJason AronsonJason Aronson is an American publisher of books in the field of psychotherapy. Topics dealt with in these books include child therapy, family therapy, couple therapy, object relations therapy, play therapy, depression, eating disorders, personality disorders, substance abuse, sexual abuse, stress,...
Publishers, 1991, Hardcover, 1991, ISBN 0876685696.
- Thalassa: A Theory of Genitality, Sandor Ferenczi, H. Karnac Books, Limited, 1989, Paperback, ISBN 0946439613.
- Legacy of Sandor Ferenczi, Edited by Adrienne Harris and Lewis Aron, Analytic Press, 1996, Hardback, ISBN 0881631493.
- Antonelli, Giorgio, Il Mare di Ferenczi, Di Renzo Editore, Roma, 1996 ISBN 8886044445
- Triad: the physicists, the analysts, the kabbalists, Tom Keve, Rosenberger & Krausz, London, 2000, ISBN 0953621901. (http://www.rosenbergerandkrausz.com/)
- 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 PressHarvard University PressHarvard University Press is a publishing house established on January 13, 1913, as a division of Harvard University, and focused on academic publishing. In 2005, it published 220 new titles. It is a member of the Association of American University Presses. Its current director is William P...
- The Correspondence of Sigmund Freud and Sándor Ferenczi, Volume 2, 1914-1919, Harvard University PressHarvard University PressHarvard University Press is a publishing house established on January 13, 1913, as a division of Harvard University, and focused on academic publishing. In 2005, it published 220 new titles. It is a member of the Association of American University Presses. Its current director is William P...
- The Correspondence of Sigmund Freud and Sándor Ferenczi, Volume 3, 1920-1933, Harvard University PressHarvard University PressHarvard University Press is a publishing house established on January 13, 1913, as a division of Harvard University, and focused on academic publishing. In 2005, it published 220 new titles. It is a member of the Association of American University Presses. Its current director is William P...
- The Clinical Diary of Sándor Ferenczi, by Sándor Ferenczi. Edited by Judith Dupont, translated by Michael Balint and Nicola Zarday Jackson, Harvard University PressHarvard University PressHarvard University Press is a publishing house established on January 13, 1913, as a division of Harvard University, and focused on academic publishing. In 2005, it published 220 new titles. It is a member of the Association of American University Presses. Its current director is William P...
. ISBN 067413527X
- Kramer, Robert (1995). The Birth of Client-Centered Therapy: Carl Rogers, Otto Rank, and 'The Beyond,' an article in Journal of Humanistic Psychology, Volume 35, Number 4, pp. 54-110.
- Ferenczi, S. (1980). Technical difficulties in the analysis of a case of hysteria: Including observations of larval forms of onanism and onanistic equivalents (J. I. Suttie, Trans.) In J. Rickman (Ed.), further contributions to the theory and technique of psychoanalysis (pp. 291-294). New York: Bruner/Mazal. (Original work published 1919).
- Rachman, A. W. (2007). “Sandor Ferenczi’s contributions to the evolution of psychoanalysis”, Psychoanalytic Psychology, Vol. 24, No. 1, pp. 74-96.
- Wolman, B. B. (1977). International encyclopedia of psychiatry, psychology, psychoanalysis, & neurology, (vol. 5). Aesculapius Publishers, New York.
External links
- Ferenczi Institute
- Biography at the Sándor Ferenczi Society, Budapest
- the Frontier of Psychoanalytic Understanding, Academy for the Study of the Psychoanalytic Arts, article written by Judith E. Vida