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Since the English publication of the Clinical Diary in 1988 there has been a new interest in the historical, theoretical and therapeutic significance of the lifework of Sándor Ferenczi. Today the figure of Ferenczi implies a series of outstanding and far-reaching innovations that designate new directions in the theory and practice of psychoanalysis. Furthermore, Ferenczi's ingenious ideas represent a successful revolt against psychoanalytic orthodoxy. Despite the reactions of Freud and the psychoanalytic community of his time, Ferenczi's theoretical and practical innovations established a fundamental shift in psychoanalysis.
It was Ferenczi who put the significance of the mother-child relationship and early object-relations into a radically new light, compared with Freud's patriarchal narrative concerning the origins and evolution of the human psyche. It was also Ferenczi who drew attention to the need for empathy and love in the psychoanalytic treatment of patients. He created a new concept of trauma that reflects on the disintegration of the self and the different voices of the broken personality's various layers. Finally, he foregrounded the problems of countertransference in psychoanalysis, and through this, the dangers of professional hypocrisy. Indeed, it is remarkable that Ferenczi's theories of trauma, countertransference and mutual analysis were associated for so long, in the context of Freudian theory, primarily with opposition to the views of his master, rather than as constructive developments.
Ferenczi's ideas are these days typically also quoted as forerunners of later influential theories from scholars such as René A. Spitz, Melanie Klein or Michael Bálint. It is obviously crucial to understand the dialogue between Freud and Ferenczi, and to identify the context in which Ferenczi's ideas survived and impregnated later theories of psychoanalysis. However, it seems that we still evaluate the oeuvre of Ferenczi in comparison to the ‘great others’. Ferenczi