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I found Dr Emanuel Berman’s letter to be a stimulating, thoughtful, complementary, and challenging response to my paper. I agree with Dr Berman that it was most regrettable that Ernest Jones decided against publishing the ‘Confusion of tongues’ paper of Sándor Ferenczi in The International Journal of Psycho-Analysis. My paper addressed issues of silence and censorship, issues which deserved special consideration on the special occasion of the 75th Anniversary of The International Journal. The ‘conspiracy of silence’ which enveloped the ‘Confusion of tongues’ only amplified confusion instead of facilitating the clarification of very important psychoanalytic ideas and controversies. The ‘Confusion of tongues’ was also a metaphor and organising theme to depict and discuss some of the fascinating contributions and controversies engendered by Ferenczi’s paper, which remain of great contemporary relevance.
Dr Berman develops a line of thought demonstrating that Ferenczi’s interest in mutual analysis had its origins in his first years as an analyst and that this could be seen in his writings and correspondence. I am in accord with this point of view and repeatedly emphasised the regressive reactivation of earlier conflicts and traumata during the periods of Ferenczi’s illness and the writing of ‘Confusion of tongues’ and the ‘Clinical Diary’. Dr Berman seems to question the thesis of regressive proclivity while indirectly supporting it and extending the historical dimension with his illustrative data and discussion. Dr Berman could have added that mutual analysis must have begun very soon after Ferenczi’s meeting with Freud and was practised aboard the ship which brought him, Freud, and Jung for the extraordinary