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My interest in sándor ferenczi is a personal one. My training analyst was analyzed by Clara Thompson, who herself was analyzed by Sándor Ferenczi. When we trace our analytic ancestry back through time, we can discover our unconscious family tree. We are great-grandchildren in the lineage of psychoanalysis as one unconscious passes down to another unconscious.
Ferenczi placed an inordinate emphasis on the concept of mutuality. For him, the cure was in the relationship, and he introduced for the first time a two-person psychology in which patient and analyst become mutual partners in the analytic hour. This reciprocal relationship signified a break with his analyst, mentor, and colleague, Sigmund Freud.
Sándor Ferenczi's writings vividly capture the openness of his sessions as he reflects with candor rather than describes what is transpiring between patient and analyst. It is through his writings and his Clinical Diary that we get to know more about his thinking, what he was feeling, and what was transpiring in the room—thus allowing us, the reader, to experience moments between him and his patients where the analytic encounter is curative.
In this issue, we look at two narratives evoking the relationship between patient and analyst. In “Ode to Jerry,” Darcy Dean Minsky writes about the horror of losing her analyst right in front of her eyes. The other narrative, “Naming the Absence,” is Kabi Hartman's account of a patient's struggle to hold onto the memory of her analyst after learning that he had died.