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Some thirty years ago, on December 28, 1926, Sandor Ferenczi delivered a paper before the Midwinter Meeting of the American Psychoanalytic Association, on Present-Day Problems in Psychoanalysis. He began as follows: 'Perhaps one of the chief handicaps which may prevent the American members of our movement from contributing to psychoanalytic knowledge and research through their own original works, is due in great measure to the fact that only after considerable time are they able to acquaint themselves with European literature in translated form'.
This quotation not only gives historical perspective to the contents of this volume; it also brings into the foreground the fundamental changes which have taken place, making English the accepted medium for discussion and scientific communication. Ferenczi's important works have long been available in English. In Final Contributions to the Problems and Methods of Psychoanalysis, the task of the editor, Dr. Michael Balint, has been to round off the presentation of Ferenczi's Selected Papers by assembling in one volume contributions hitherto scattered through various scientific publications and by making available in competent translation relevant material from the Bausteine zur Psychoanalyse, till now accessible only in German.
The material has been divided into three groups: 1, Papers written after the publication of Further Contributions to the Theory and Technique of Psychoanalysis, covering the period 1926-1933. 2, Posthumous papers: earlier notes and fragments (1909-1932). 3, Miscellaneous papers (1908-1922), omitted from the earlier volumes of collected papers, but which the editor felt merited inclusion. Each group is arranged chronologically and a bibliography is included of Ferenczi's works published in English, with carefully detailed references. This method has the advantage of allowing the reader to follow the development of the author's thought and to position it against the general growth of psychoanaly