The Correspondence of Sigmund Freud and Sándor Ferenczi, Volume 2, 1914-1919. : Edited by Ernst Falzeder and Eva Brabant with the collaboration of Patrizia Giamperi-Deutsch.

This second volume of the Freud-Ferenczi correspondence covers the period from July 1914, just after the assassination in Sarajevo of the heir to the Habsburg thrones, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, to the end of December 1919 and thus includes the entire First World War. The large number of letters exchanged (341) during these four and a half years is largely attributable to Freud's isolation, the Great War having prevented him from communicating as easily with correspondents outside the countries of the Triple Alliance (Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy). This naturally brought him closer to Ferenczi, whom he met frequently owing to the freedom of travel between Vienna and Budapest.

Although this period was sombre and depressing in many respects, it was one of astounding creativity and productivity for Freud; for example, he composed his metapsychological papers. He shared the advances recorded in them unreservedly with his young friend, who in return informed him of his own writing plans and forwarded his papers to him.

However, a central aspect of these four and a half years of correspondence is Ferenczi's analysis and its repercussions both on the relationship between the two men and on Ferenczi's private life.

Freud had been hesitant about this project, which he had been trying to put off for some years. However, in the upheavals of the time, Freud now somewhat reluctantly agreed to take Ferenczi into analysis. It proceeded in three phases between 1914 and 1916: three weeks from 1 to 20 October 1914; just over three weeks from 13/14 June to 10 July 1916; and a fortnight from 29 September to 12 October 1916. Although Ferenczi, like Freud, acknowledged on various occasions that this analytic experience was by no means negligible, it is clear today that Ferenczi never really felt that he had benefited from it as much as he had hoped.

While Freud was often dazzled by the exceptional analytic ability of his disciple, he sometimes found himself in a diffi