Abstract
This paper examines Ferenczi's contributions to the concepts of transference and countertransference, especially in the Clinical Diary, and the weight of these ideas in our present-day clinical work. Specifically emphasized are the circulation of archaic communication within the session, and the denial of countertransference as a re-traumatazing agent, shown in a clinical vignette.
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Notes
Transference does not originate exclusively from the patient, but is also an effect of the analytic situation, including the analytic Superego of the analyst.
Ferenczi (1915, p. 109).
Andre Haynal (2002) gives an illuminating account of how Freud and Ferenczi were drawn to each other in their fascination with the secrets of thought transmission, from the moment they met in 1908. Haynal writes, “In the Freud-Ferenczi Correspondence Freud enthuses to Ferenczi on 6/10/1909: ‘This transference of your thoughts in incomprehensible ways is a strange thing … Keep quiet about it for the time being.’ In the same year as Ferenczi wrote his 1915 paper, Freud wrote that important communications acted ‘without passing through the CS, because the UCS of one human being can react upon that of another’ (Freud, 1915, p. 194). It is hard to know, Haynal explains, who started what, because Freud and Ferenczi bounced ideas off of each other all the time. Both Freud and Ferenczi hoped that thought-transference would shed light on transference dynamics” (Haynal, 2002, p. 6). Then in 1921, in his paper Psycho-Analysis and Telepathy, Freud states, “Accordingly, this example, too, would seem to offer positively conclusive evidence of its being possible to transfer an unconscious wish and the thoughts and knowledge relating to it” (p. 189). “Observations of this kind, in my opinion, can provide the best material on the question of thought-transference, …” (p. 190). Freud writes of his own resistance on the communication of these topics, which led him to try to exclude these matters: “But I can now give you visible proof of the fact that I discuss the subject of occultism under the pressure of great resistance. …” (p. 190). (Here Freud referred to having lost the sheet of paper on which he wrote his observations.)
Although if we read the clinical notes, for example the Case of the Rat Man [Freud (1909, p. 209), and specially in his original notes (p. 281)], and compare them with those of the Wolf Man (1918), we may suppose that this preference is a later development in Freud's work.
… no analysis can succeed as long as the false and alleged differences between the “analytical situation” and ordinary life are not overcome, just like the conceit and feeling of superiority—still to be found among the analysts—with regard to the patient. (Clinical Diary, Note June 18, p. 129)
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1M.D., Training and Supervising Analyst, Asociación Psicoanalítica de Buenos Aires; Professor at the Instituto Universitario de Salud Mental de Apdeba; Consulting Professor of Mental Health, Universidad de Buenos Aires Medical School.
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Boschan, P. Transference and Countertransference in Sándor Ferenczi's Clinical Diary. Am J Psychoanal 71, 309–320 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1057/ajp.2011.36
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/ajp.2011.36