Ferenczi’s Influence on Contemporary Psychoanalytic Traditions: Lines of Development—Evolution of Theory and Practice Over the Decades.: Edited by Aleksandar Dimitrijević, Gabriele Cassullo, and Jay Frankel. London/New York: Routledge, 2018. 308 pp.

I have long been interested in integrating the development of theories regarding psychic trauma and interweaving them with classical conflict theory. For this reason, I have followed the Sándor Ferenczi revival, which started about thirty-five years ago. The emotions regarding Ferenczi have frequently been extreme—positive or negative, either demonizing or worshiping him. On the negative side, Ferenczi’s name has been used to justify esoteric, unorthodox practices in psychoanalysis and psychotherapy, laying him open to criticism. But he has also been highly admired by some for his original contributions to psychoanalysis and by others as an early rebel against Freud; further, publication of the Freud-Ferenczi correspondence unveiled the centrality of their friendship in the development of the field (more about this in what follows).

The reader of Ferenczi’s Influence on Contemporary Psychoanalytic Traditions can absorb the best Ferenczi scholarship over these last thirty-five years, depicting this range of responses. Useful as a source book or a teaching tool, the book also points readers toward original sources cited by the authors of the individual chapters, serving as a valuable repository of primary data.

The volume is organized in four parts, starting with a biographical/historical section, followed by a section on Ferenczi’s clinical contributions. The third section delves into his influence on major psychoanalytic thinkers who followed him, such as Melanie Klein, Harry Stack Sullivan, Jean Laplanche, and Ja

cques Lacan. The last part gives a flavor of contemporary psychoanalytic developments, both clinical and theoretical, that were influenced by Ferenczi’s life and work.

The first section starts from Ferenczi’s childhood and his youthful milieu. Krisztián Kapusi takes the reader through his career as a psychiatrist before he met Freud at the age of thirty-six. During this time, Gabriele Cassullo writes, he explored hypnosis and automatic writing and addressed