Sándor Ferenczi's First Paper Considered as a “Calling Card”1

Sándor Ferenczi's first paper (1908) on the subject of premature ejaculation - in its stress on the repercussions of the symptom itself in the other (in this case, the woman), rather than its unconscious significance or the patient's pathology - is an early signal of the ethical directions his future clinical work would take. Ferenczi - displaying a decidedly relational, not merely intrapsychic, orientation - underlines the peculiar idiosyncrasies of each partner in the couple and also the fact that any relationship worthy of the name must take place in conditions of mutual pleasure and advantage. In particular, Ferenczi strikes a blow for the “legitimate” needs of the weaker partner to whom the stronger must allow and offer mental space and voice by virtue of his knowledge and power. For the above reasons this first paper is a “calling card” which announces Ferenczi's later reflections on the specific affective qualities that may render the psychoanalytic environment non-traumatic, as well as his criticism of the narcissistic aspects of the analyst (one of the most important motives for subtle and hidden trauma), who views the work of interpretation as the product of a single mind (in my terms: a kind of colonisation and expropriation of the other) rather than as fruit of an encounter that would take into account both the unique characteristics of the partner as well as the rhythms appropriate to such a relationship.