Ferenczi's Influence on Contemporary Psychoanalytic Traditions: Lines of Development - Evolution of Theory and Practice over the Decades, edited by Aleksandar Dimitrijević, Gabriele Cassullo, and Jay Frankel,  Routledge, Abingdon and New York, 2018,  308pp.

The pandemic that struck Austria-Hungary in the summer of 1918 spread with such intensity that by the fall, all the schools in Vienna were closed. Two close friends and colleagues, Sigmund Freud and Sándor Ferenczi, corresponded with one another about the current state of affairs, filling each other in on the health of their families and the impact of the viral scourge on their private practices.

“Anna, Ernst, Mathilde are in the process of recovering from their Spanish [flus]. Oli suffered from it as well…” (Freud, 1918a, p. 299). “I and those closest to me have up to now been spared the Spanish flu, even though our hospital is a gathering place for severe cases. A pity that you have so much to do with this burdensome guest” (Ferenczi, 1918a, p. 300). “The epidemic is still dominating the scene. One hears about horrendous cases and is always reassured when someone has already had it” (Freud, 1918b, p. 302). “The influenza - or however one may term this pestilence - is terribly rampant in Budapest. Ten to fifteen persons are dying in our hospital daily” (Ferenczi, 1918b, p. 303). “My practice was very limited during these weeks of the epidemic” (Freud, 1918c, p. 305). “Isolation is an abhorrent source of the feeling of impotence, which is so strong at this time” (Freud, 1918d, p. 306).

Although this dialogue took place more than 100 years ago, it feels uncannily similar to the conversations many of us are now having during the current global pandemic. For the past several weeks I've been peering at my patients' pixelated faces and into their private spaces through my computer screen. Our sessions are punctuated by the wailing of ambulance sirens, jarring reminders of our shared trauma. There is some comfort in knowing we are not the first generation of psychoanalysts to have their personal lives and private practices upended by a plague.

Were he alive today, I suspect that Freud (1913), who abhorred the thought of “being stared at by other people for eight hours a day