Sandor Ferenczi

Born July 16, 1873. Died May 22, 1933 A Memorial Address delivered at a Special Meeting of the Vienna Psycho-Analytical Society, July 17, 1933

Of those who responded to the clarion-call of Freud's writings and joined the ranks of psycho-analysis, each one has stood in a special personal relation to the master's work and has approached in an individual manner the victories and hardships to which Freud led the way. A king was building, and men of intrepid and unwavering spirit were eager to fetch and carry for him. Some realized the magnitude, though not the full grandeur, of that which was opening up before their eyes. With the companion of Columbus they could say: 'I did not understand what he taught: I accepted it all. In the power of his glance I read the promise of new worlds'. There were others who needed further proofs before they could join the movement. As St. Thomas required the evidence of all his senses, so they demanded that the genuineness of the new revelation should be scientifically attested by all possible methods before they too should believe. Their work was determined by these resistances, and carried on in the teeth of them; it was for such as they that training analysis was subsequently introduced, thereby saving them a great deal of time. When the soil has been broken up by the plough, original ideas will strike deeper root. Ferenczi himself had at first to battle with resistances; he was assisted by the Zürich school's 'more exact' method of proving the facts of repression and sexual complexes. When Jung became President of the International Psycho-Analytical Association, he remarked, in justification of his election, that three leaders of the Psycho-Analytical Societies had passed through the Zürich School. We were destined to discover that the demand for 'additional proofs' led sooner or later to secession. Ferenczi, however, soon won his way to the 'happiness of firm conviction'. At the Munich Congress, in a paper entitled 'B