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This last period of Ferenczi's technical experiments, dating from his trip to the United States in 1926 to his death in 1933, has been referred to as the period of his “relaxation technique,” “elasticity of technique” and “period of indulgence.”
From the beginning and throughout his analytic career, Ferenczi had emphasized the effects of the child's early environment and the persuasive and difficult nature of the analyst's countertransference in the analytic relationship. His experiments with “activity” had drawn his attention to the quality of the analytic relationship. As he now focused on the “real” quality of the analytic relationship, he also redirected his attention to the “real” aspects of his patients' childhoods. He now emphasized, not the child's internal drives and conflicts, but the pathological reaction of adults during the early, crucial stages of development.
During this last period Ferenczi continually assessed the relationship between what he saw as both the beneficial and pathogenic conditions of childhood with what he felt were the problematic and curative factors in analytic treatment. Although Ferenczi's last paper, “Confusion of Tongues” (1933), which was written at a time of personal difficulty and isolation, has received much attention as a radical departure from the existing analytic