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Following the long overdue publication in English of The Clinical Diary of Sándor Ferenczi (Dupont, 1988), and with the recent publication of the first volume of the Correspondence of Sigmund Freud and Sándor Ferenczi (Brabant, et al., 1993), the appearance of a book which assesses the historical significance and theoretical contributions of this most intimate and highly controversial colleague of Freud's is very timely indeed. Ferenczi's tragic death in May 1933 from pernicious anemia at the age of 60 took place amid a cloud of uncertainty, which has persisted to this day, regarding the precise nature of his relationship with Freud, the state of his own mental health, and the relevance of his clinical contributions to the still evolving corpus of psychoanalytic thought. The editors of The Legacy of Sándor Ferenczi have taken a significant step toward dispelling this cloud by providing a coherent context in which the above issues are addressed from a variety of perspectives by some 20 knowledgeable commentators who have benefited from extensive current historical and clinical research.
Because limitations of space preclude an in-depth review of each of the individual commentaries, I have chosen to base my appraisal of the work on a selection which best illustrates the typical approaches to each of the pertinent issues, with the intent of not excluding any original or noteworthy contribution in the process.
Following a brief general introduction by Edith Kurzweil and a well-organized and comprehensive introductory essay by the editors, the book is divided into three parts and a postscript. Part I, “Constructing and Reconstructing the Historical Record,” begins with an overview by Judit Mészáros of Ferenczi's preanalytic period, and an essay by André Haynal, “Ferenczi and the Origins of Psychoanalytic Technique,” both of which emphasize the depth of Ferenczi's interest in and understanding of psychopathology before he met Freud. In his discussion of Haynal's paper, Axel