Sandor Ferenczi, a reference in psychoanalysis

Sandor Ferenczi was recorded in history As the “enfant terrible” of psychoanalysis. This wonderful man of science was born on July 7, 1873, in Hungary. His original name was Alexander Fränkel. However, his father adopted the surname Ferenczi in 1880 and he, for his part, kept Alexander’s diminutive, “Sandor.”

Ferenczi had 11 siblings and lost his father prematurely. His mother took care of the home, running a family bookstore. It is said that a good part of this psychoanalyst’s theses derived precisely from that unique family nucleus. Freud, who later became his teacher, even spoke of the “complex fraternal of Ferenczi”.

As he himself commented, his childhood It took place in the midst of great heartbreak. Her mother was very strict and expressions of affection were almost prohibited in the family.. At the same time, the bookstore allowed him to delve into reading from a very young age and become a poet at an early age. At a very young age he moved to Vienna and entered university to study medicine.

Ferenczi and his encounter with psychoanalysis

Sandor Ferenczi obtained his medical degree at the age of 21. He later specialized in neurology and psychiatry. Between 1899 and 1907 he published a large number of articles in a Hungarian medical journal. This production is known as The Budapest Writings. In them he makes a first approach to psychoanalysis.

Ferenczi was first impressed with the work and ideas of Carl Gustav Jung. When he visited Hungary, they had the opportunity to meet. Jung makes Ferenczi and Sigmund Freud meetsince he thinks they can have a very enriching exchange of ideas.

Since then, a close friendship began. between Ferenczi and Freud. A good part of the biography of both of them and the history of psychoanalysis emerges from the profuse correspondence they maintained for several years.

Ferenczi’s passionate dramas

Sandor Ferenczi had a love life full of storms and contradictions. Many claim that this life wonderfully exemplified several concepts of psychoanalysis, such as the Oedipus complex and the compulsion to repeat. At 31 years old he falls in love with Gizella, a married woman 8 years older than him. She wanted a divorce, but her husband didn’t. So the relationship with Ferenczi remained clandestine.

Elma, Gizella’s daughter, feels deeply depressed and her mother advises her to undergo psychoanalysis with Ferenczi. He receives her for consultation and soon begins to feel that he cannot maintain his analytical neutrality. He falls in love with his lover’s daughter. He renounces doing psychoanalysis with her and refers her to Freud. He takes care of her for three months and then returns her to Ferenczi’s office.

Meanwhile, the relationship between Ferenczi and Gizella has been reborn. In consultation, Ferenczi convinces Elma, Gizella’s daughter, to go away from her. He finally marries the girl’s mother, but that relationship never manages to overcome the traces of those years. What does all this drama have to do with psychoanalysis? The love triangle reveals to Ferenczi his own neurosis. Many of his conclusions come from those experiences..

Ferenczi’s theses

One of Sandor Ferenczi’s most memorable works is Psychoanalysis and pedagogy. In it he analyzes the effect that so-called education has on the traumas and neuroses of human beings. He goes so far as to say that pedagogy seeks to deny people’s emotions and ideas.. Ultimately, this leads the child to learn to deceive himself, denying what he knows, what he feels and what he thinks.

He maintains that psychoanalysis should be a process that allows the individual to break with the prejudices that prevent him from truly knowing himself. It also introduces valuable contributions to what the technique should be to carry out the psychoanalytic process. One of them is what ended up being called “didactic psychoanalysis.” This is, the principle that every psychoanalyst must undergo his or her own psychoanalysis before treating patients. It’s clear why she saw it as important.

He also devised the so-called “active technique”. This meant great flexibility in the psychoanalytic framework, which depends on the characteristics of the patient and the specific circumstances of the problem. The concept has been highly questioned, but it still has its followers today. Similarly, he developed the concept of “identification with the aggressor,” although this is generally attributed to Anna Freud.

One of his biographers describes Ferenczi as “a peculiar, dreamy and sensitive psychoanalyst”. Many claim that his work has not been sufficiently valued. Maybe so. Her love affairs earned her the antipathy and rejection of many of his colleagues. Perhaps that is why her name has not been written in gold letters within that school.

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