Sandor Ferenczi (1873-1933): The Father of the Empathic-Interpersonal Approach Part One: Introduction and Early Analytic Years

Of the early psychoanalytic pioneers, Sandor Ferenczi's contributions to psychoanalysis were second only to Freud's. Seven years after the beginning of Ferenczi's analytic career, Freud (1914) wrote: “Hungary, so near geographically to Austria, and so far scientifically, has produced only one collaborator, S. Ferenczi, but one that indeed outweighs a whole society” (p. 33). Ferenczi enjoyed the most intimate relationship with Freud of all the early members of Freud's inner circle. Shortly before Ferenczi's death in 1933, Freud described their long friendship as an intimate sharing of life, spirit and interests. Through his great personal appeal, enthusiasm and creativity, Ferenczi influenced many of the important early analysts. Many of them, including Michael Balint, Ernst Jones, Melanie Klein, Sandor Lorand, Sandor Rado, Geza Roheim and Clara Thompson, were in analysis with him. Yet, despite this status, at the time of his death in 1933, he was emotionally isolated from his long-standing colleagues and in professional disrepute. His last and certainly most controversial paper, “Confusion of Tongues Between Adults and the Child” (1933), the opening address at the 1932 International Psycho-Analytical Conference, was not translated into English for fifteen years. Balint, (1949) writing at the time of that publication stated: