Creativity and the True Self

ALTHOUGH THIS PAPER ENVELOPS a multiplicity of implications, as a clinical narration it is both open and direct. It is the child/patient/pupil triad that causes the implications of the paper to branch out into three different but related directions. Furthermore, each branch develops its own challenge to accepted psychoanalytic theory in the areas of infantile sexuality, the "analytic situation" and psychoanalytic training. This discussion also focuses on the psychological processes occurring in the author himself, for these were connected with and must certainly have influenced the depth and character of his work. It then touches issues involving analytic creativity.

Ferenczi's style of writing captures fully the emotional intensity of the sessions he discusses. He reflects rather than describes the powerful feelings experienced by patient and analyst alike. He communicates what he did, what he thought, and what he felt with an openness that vividly recreates for the reader the interaction itself, inviting us to the session and to the inner experience of the analyst as well. The candor with which Ferenczi presents his material allows the reader to feel his "worry and embarrassment, " his motives and thoughts. This decision to expose himself to everyone's