You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
International Review of Psycho-Analysis, Volume 18, Part 4, 1991
The painful personal and professional controversy which arose between Sigmund Freud and his favourite pupil, Sandor Ferenczi, towards the end of the latter's life, is examined first from an historical perspective and then as a metaphor for conflicts universally experienced by the analyst in daily work. Their disagreement originates in Ferenczi's challenge - articulated in his techniques of ‘relaxation’ and ‘indulgence’ - to Freud's principle of ‘abstinence’. By 1930, their views on the analytic relationship had become so highly polarized that Freud came to represent the emphasis on thinking and frustration while Ferenczi stood for gratification and feeling. Ultimately, their controversy centred around Freud's emphasis on the work of remembering and reconstructing in contrast to Ferenczi's emphasis on re-living and re-experiencing. The relevance of these controversies to current views on what aspects of the repetition in psycho-analysis are therapeutic is illustrated by a clinical example from the literature of a patient who wants to hold the analyst's hand during the reexperiencing of an early traumatic event. The continuing influence of their controversy on contemporary debates about the nature of the analytic relationship and the analyst's participation in the repetition compulsion through re-enactments is highlighted.
International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, Volume 72, Part 4, 1991
Encapsulation is defined as a defence against annihilation anxiety. A theoretical orientation concerning the origins of this kind of anxiety is outlined, and the causal efficacy of early traumata is emphasized. On this basis, encapsulation is conceptualized as an introjective process through which attempts are made to fuse and confuse parts of the self with parts of the lost and abandoning object.