Ferenczi's Trauma Theory

Trauma was at the heart of Sándor Ferenczi's clinical concerns. Toward the end of his life, he became convinced that trauma was an important cause of much neurotic and character pathology, despite the fact that traumatic factors were generally neglected by other analysts (1933, p. 156).’ Ferenczi's final ideas about trauma were presented in very brief form—“a short extract” (1933, p. 156), as he said—in his final paper, “Confusion of Tongues Between Adults and the Child.” He intended to expand, develop, and reevaluate these ideas (Balint, 1958), but soon after he wrote this paper he became too ill to do so, and after several months he died.

However, Ferenczi had published other papers that dealt with trauma, notably during the First World War on “war neurosis” (1916/17), and much later in his papers on relaxation technique (1929, 1930, 1931). In his last years, he also made many notes to himself on his ideas about trauma, among other topics, which were posthumously gathered together and published in the third volume of his collected papers (1955) under the title, “Notes and Fragments” (1920 and 1930-1932). These “Notes and Fragments” flank his Clinical Diary (1932), which was written between January and October 1932 but not published until 1985 (and not until 1988 in English), and which contains many additional clinical observations and ideas about trauma. The present paper will attempt to bring together all of Ferenczi's writings about trauma2 and to present them in a concise, integrated, and organized way.

Ferenczi's work as a medical officer in the Austro-Hungarian Army during the First World War provided the basis for his first systematic study of psychological trauma. His observations of shell-shocked soldiers led him to conclude that “sudden affect that could not be psychically controlled (the shock) causes the trauma” (1916/17, p. 129). This is a definition in terms of