Preface

The “enfant terrible” of psychoanalysis! This was how Sandor Ferenczi described himself during his presentation to the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society on 3 May 1931, on the occasion of Freud's 75th birthday. The title of his paper was “Child Analysis in the Analysis of Adults.” Long misunderstood and obscured in the official psychoanalytic milieu, Ferenczi's work has since been rediscovered and is today justly appreciated for the depth, creativity, and generativity of his clinical and theoretical intuition. We have inherited from him a truly authentic analytic spirit, original and innovative in its particular way of apprehending the transference-counter-transference dynamic of the psychoanalytic process.

Ferenczi's theory and technique revolved around his thinking about trauma and its consequences, psychical and physical. He considered disavowal by significant others and their lack of an adequate response essential elements in the impact of trauma and related suffering on the immature psyche. The absence of recognition and help necessitates the elaboration of pathological solutions to cope with the trauma. The latter range from splitting and identification with the aggressor to total paralysis of symbolic functioning and serious somatic difficulties.

Ferenczi's thought has been a fruitful source of inspiration for numerous analysts and therapists, as suggested by the variety, richness, and openness of the articles published in a previous issue of the Canadian Journal of Psychoanalysis (vol. 23, no. 1, ), and in the present volume. The current issue offers a selection of articles emerging from the international Sándor Ferenczi conference “Heritage of a Psychoanalytic Mind,” chaired by Endre Koritar and Josette Garon, Toronto, 7-10 May 2015.

Close attention to the Freud-Ferenczi correspondence and their respective writings demonstrates the filiation in the preoccupations of the two