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This book, written by one of Ferenczi's expatients, is a more than sympathetic account of his therapeutic outlook during the last ten years of his life. It is a dithyrambic, and in places religious, paean of the importance of love in the world, and particularly in the treatment of neurosis. As is well known, Ferenczi in those years went very far in his view that the analyst should display positive emotions to his patient and in that way compensate for any insufficient love in her childhood. Naturally this attitude often evoked profound gratitude on the part of the patient, and the present book appears to be a somewhat belated expression of it.
Mrs. de Forest's ardently expressed gospel of love and charity, however, has distinct limits in its application, and there is a note of strong resentment at the possibility of Freud not having treated his friend with the full meed of love he doubtless deserved. It is true that Freud did not go so far as Ferenczi along the therapeutic path mentioned, and once or twice he even warned him mildly against the practical risk of potential excess in the direction he was following. The author is not aware of the latter information, but that Freud was not wholeheartedly enthusiastic about Ferenczi's later technique is quite sufficient for her to construe this simple fact into accusations of 'Freud's increasingly harsh criticisms and disapproval', indeed his 'enmity', 'bitter criticism' and 'hostility'. Ferenczi, we are told, endured all this with a Christlike patience and devotion that saved the old friendship from a final break.
The truth of all this is quite otherwise. Freud's feelings for his friend never changed except in the one respect of regret at his withdrawal from him. When Ferenczi almost ceased writing to Freud and was evidently withdrawing into a self-absorbed isolation Freud was naturally distressed and saddened, and on one occasion uttered what Ferenczi in a letter referred to as a 'gentle reproach', adding 'to be q