| The Correspondence of Sigmund Freud and Sándor Ferenczi Contributor(s): Freud, Sigmund (Author), Ferenczi, Sándor (Author), Falzeder, Ernst (Editor) |
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ISBN: 0674174194 ISBN-13: 9780674174191 Publisher: Belknap Press OUR PRICE: $111.87 Product Type: Hardcover - Other Formats Published: March 1996 Annotation: The young psychiatrist from Budapest had studied medicine in Vienna, he had read The Interpretation of Dreams, and now he was to meet its author. Seventeen years Sigmund Freud's junior, Sandor Ferenczi (1873-1933) sent off a note anticipating the pleasure of the older man's acquaintance - thus beginning a correspondence that would flourish over the next twenty-five years, and that today provides a living record of some of the most important insights and developments of psychoanalysis, worked out through the course of a deep and profoundly complicated friendship. This volume opens in January of 1908 and closes on the eve of World War I. Letter by letter, a "fellowship of life, thoughts, and interests", as Freud came to describe it, unfolds here as a passionate exchange of ideas and theories. Ferenczi's contribution to psychoanalysis was, Freud said, "pure gold", and many of the younger man's notions and concepts, proposed in these letters, later made their way into Freud's works on homosexuality, paranoia, trauma, transference, and other topics. To the two men's mutual scientific interests others were soon added, and their correspondence expanded in richness and complexity as Ferenczi attempted to work out his personal and professional conflicts under the direction of his devoted and sometimes critical elder colleague. |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Psychology | Movements - Psychoanalysis - Psychology | History |
| Dewey: B |
| LCCN: 93-17479 |
| Physical Information: 1.06" H x 6.64" W x 9.56" (1.65 lbs) 448 pages |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: Volume I of the three-volume Freud-Ferenczi correspondence closes with Freud's letter from Vienna, dated June 28, 1914, to his younger colleague in Budapest: "I am writing under the impression of the surprising murder in Sarajevo, the consequences of which cannot be foreseen ' "Now," he continues in a more familiar vein, "to our affairs " The nation-shattering events of World War I form a somber canvas for "our affairs" and the exchanges of the two correspondents in volume 2 (July 1914 through December 1919). Uncertainty pervades these letters: Will Ferenczi be called up? Will food and fuel-and cigar-shortages continue? Will Freud's three enlisted sons and son-in-law come through the war intact? And will Freud's "problem-child," psychoanalysis, survive?At the same time, a more intimate drama is unfolding: Freud's three-part analysis of Ferenczi in 1914 and 1916 ("finished but not terminated"); Ferenczi's concomitant turmoil over whether to marry his mistress, Gizella P los, or her daughter, Elma; and the refraction of all these relationships in constantly shifting triads and dyads. In these, as in other matters, both men display characteristic contradictions and inconsistencies, Freud restrained, Ferenczi more effusive and revealing. Freud, for example, unswervingly favors Ferenczi's marriage to Gizella and views his indecision as "resistance"; yet several years later, commenting on Otto Rank's wife, Freud remarks, "One certainly can't judge in these matters...on behalf of another." Ferenczi, for his part, reacts to the paternal authority of the "father of psychoanalysis" as an alternately obedient and rebellious son. The letters vividly record the use--and misuse--of analysis and self-analysis and the close interweaving of personal and professional matters in the early history of psychoanalysis. Ferenczi's eventual disagreement with Freud about "head and heart," objective detachment versus subjective involvement and engagement in the analytic relationship--an issue that would emerge more clearly in the ensuing years--is hinted at here. As the decade and the volume end, the correspondents continue their literary conversation, unaware of the painful and heartrending events ahead. |
Contributor Bio(s): Falzeder, Ernst: - Ernst Falzeder, a psychologist in Liezen, Austria, has published widely on the history of psychoanalysis.Giampieri-Deutsch, Patrizia: - Patrizia Giampieri-Deutsch is a psychoanalyst and lecturer in philosophy at the University of Vienna.Hoffer, Peter T.: - Peter T. Hoffer is Professor of German at the University of the Sciences in Philadelphia.Brabant, Eva: - Eva Brabant is a psychoanalyst and historian in Paris.Hoffer, Axel: - Axel Hoffer, M.D., a practicing psychoanalyst in the Boston area, is on the faculty of Harvard Medical School and the Psychoanalytic Institute of New England (PINE). |