Human Foibles and Psychoanalytic Technique: Freud, Ferenczi, and Gizella Palos
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UMAN FOIBLES AND PSYCHOANALYTIC TECHNIQUE: FREUD, FERENCZI, AND GIZELLA PALOS Benjamin Kilborne
This paper explores relations between human conundrums and psychoanalytic technique and theory through the relationship between Freud and Ferenczi. Rather than vilify (or lionize) either figure, the paper seeks to see into their struggles and conflicts, and to draw from correspondence and writings a portrait of a relationship. The paper describes not two dusty figures drawn from the closet of history but rather two live, flawed, and struggling human beings whose rational ideas about what they were doing could never keep step with their emotions. There is therefore much to be learned from their relationship: about transference and countertransference, about boundaries and friendship, about rivalry and despair, and about shame.
KEY WORDS: psychoanalytic technique; human foibles; psychoanalytic history; shame; idealization; trauma; Freud–Ferenczi relationship. DOI:10.1057/palgrave.ajp.3350045
All history is the interpretation of the present Benedetto Croce FEELING THE PULSE OF PSYCHOANALYTIC HISTORY
In this paper I will explore the Freud–Ferenczi relationship with an eye towards elucidating shame dynamics and their pertinence in the generation of theory. It is often thought that psychoanalytic theory represents progress, and that advances are advances because they are more contemporary or more modern. Therefore, an account of the messy and often confused and confusing relationships between theoreticians a century ago may provide a reminder that theoretical progress is of little use if it does not allow us to be at once more respectful and more effective in treating patients. Furthermore, difficulties in all human relationships cannot but find their ways into psychoanalytic work. The history of the social sciences is curiously full of ahistorical and positivistic assumptions1 to which the Benjamin Kilborne, Ph.D., Member, American Psychoanalytic Association, International Psychoanalytic Association. In private practice in West Stockbridge, MA. Address correspondence to Benjamin Kilborne, Ph.D., 5 Lenox Road, West Stockbridge, MA 01266; e-mail: [email protected]
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KILBORNE
history of psychoanalysis has sometimes fallen prey. Using history to reassure ourselves that such messes happened only in the past and that we are now beyond them runs the danger of presentism, and places the conundrums and personal conflicts of our forebears beyond our reach. Since it is in the nature of our work to involve two warm-blooded and necessarily flawed human beings, a recognition today of how valiantly both Freud and Ferenczi struggled with their professional responsibilities, their friendships, their loyalties, their ambitions, and their anxieties can serve as useful reminders that no theory, no matter how contemporary, can save us from struggles of a similar kind. All we can do is to marshal our psychoanalytic resources, our understanding of theory and technique, our clinical experience, our personal grasp of our own feelings and ideas
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