The Clinical Diary of Sándor Ferenczi (Paperback)

by Sándor Ferenczi (Author), Judith Dupont (Editor), Michael Balint (Translator), Nicola Zarday Jackson (Translator)

Editorial Reviews

Review
Compelling...Ferenczi was an innovator, an experimenter, someone who was always trying new approaches to the treatment of mental illness, even when his unorthodox techniques placed him in opposition to his analyst and mentor, Sigmund Freud.
--Stuart Schneiderman (New York Times Book Review )

Allows the public to assess, far better than before, the range of [Ferenczi's] professional gifts and the depth of his psychological vulnerability...A welcome addition to the growing number of significant texts illuminating the history of psychoanalysis.
--Peter Gay (London Review of Books )

The Diary is the work of a sane mind in full possession of its powers and gives us insight into the day-to-day thoughts of a practitioner whose status as a creative innovator is probably unsurpassed since Freud. It is a very moving book. One is continually amazed by the courage of the man.
--Peter Lomas (Times Literary Supplement )

Freud criticised his one-time favourite son for advocating the 'kissing technique', Ferenzci believed that 'only sympathy heals'. This is the 1932 record of his analyses. His work was faltering, doubting, and quite possibly, healing.
--David Flusfeder (The Week )

Product Description
In the half-century since his death, the Hungarian analyst Sándor Ferenczi has amassed an influential following within the psychoanalytic community. During his lifetime Ferenczi, a respected associate and intimate of Freud, unleashed widely disputed ideas that influenced greatly the evolution of modern psychoanalytic technique and practice. In a sequence of short, condensed entries, Sándor Ferenczi's Diary records self-critical reflections on conventional theory--as well as criticisms of Ferenczi's own experiments with technique--and his obstinate struggle to divest himself and psychoanalysis of professional hypocrisy. From these pages emerges a hitherto unheard voice, speaking to his heirs with startling candor and forceful originality--a voice that still resonates in the continuing debates over the nature of the relationship in psychoanalytic practice.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Harvard University Press (April 1, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 067413527X
• ISBN-13: 978-0674135277
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.1 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #435,250 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

  Popular in this category: (What's this?)

  #52 in

  Books > Biographies & Memoirs > People, A-Z > ( J ) > Jackson, Michael

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Notes of a kind and tenderhearted analyst, July 4, 2000

By	Eileen Galen (USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

The Hungarian analyst Ferenczi was a Freudian, a member of Freud's early circle, and a renegade of sorts. He was Freud's analysand and, relatively quickly, moved into intellectually uncharted psychological waters. He gained a reputation as a passionate, unorthodox, and even flakey analyst. This "clinical diary" charts with candor, disarming simplicity, and stunning lucidity the thought process of Ferenczi as he discusses his patients, Freud, his own interesting experiences of countertransference, and his highly original and ( especially for their time) unconventional notions regarding the psychoanalyst's rightful and appropriate levels and types of engagement with patients. He was a caring and humane doctor. The writing is complex and layered at times. A very, very worthwhile read.