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Is the form Freud gave to the analytic relationship definitive? This question will be answered by analysing the argumentation in the Freud-Ferenczi controversy concerning the design of the therapeutic relationship. The current albeit superficial mode of interpretation of this controversy is mainly in terms of a supposed ‘warm’ emotional involvement of the analyst, as opposed to his ‘cold’ aloofness. Fundamentally however, the controversy concerns the way one should delineate the psychoanalytic relationship, as a method of treatment, from our everyday relationships. Freud and Ferenczi are the historical figures exemplifying what can be considered an ongoing debate.
… My recommendations on technique given at the time were essentially negative. I considered it most important to underline what should not be done and to show the temptations opposing analysis. Almost everything to be done positively I left to the ‘tact’ introduced by you. But I aimed not at the obedients who were not aware of the elasticity of my remarks and subjected themselves to my recommendations as if they were taboo-regulations. This should be revised one day, without, however, doing away with the obligations.
Freud in a letter to Ferenczi, 4.1.1928 (Ferenczi 1928a, p. 99)