Sándor Ferenczi Books

In Thalassa,Ferenczi expands the symbols of pallus and vagina into cosmic symbols, not by reference to myths but by his interpretations of embryonic, physiological, and psychological facts. he develops the view that the whole of life is determined by a tendency toreturn to the womb, equating the process of birth with the phylogenetic transition of animal life from water to land, and linking coitus to the idea of "thalassal regression": "the longing for the sea-life from which man emerged in primeval times."

C'est en s'interrogeant sur la nature du transfert que Sandor Ferenczi crée en 1909, avec la notion d'introjection, l'un des plus importants concepts de la psychanalyse. Ce processus psychique, qui consiste à intégrer quelque chose ou quelqu'un ou des aspects de quelqu'un à l'intérieur de soi, questionne les limites du soi et de l'autre, les frontières entre le dehors et le dedans. Freud élaborera sur cette base sa théorie des identifications Melanie Klein, le concept d'identification projective ; Wilfred Bion, sa réflexion sur la communication interhumaine ; Maria Torok et Nicolas Abraham, les notions de crypte et de fantôme et s'en trouveront éclairés les pathologies du narcissisme, la vie psychique des tout-petits, les mécanismes de l'intersubjectivité, du transgénérationnel, du contre-transfert, de l'empathie ou du travail de deuil.

If the transference of the erogenous excitability from the clitoris to the vagina has succeeded, the woman has thus changed her leading zone for the future sexual activity; the man on the other hand retains his from childhood. The main determinants for the woman's preference for the neuroses, especially for hysteria, lie in this change of the leading zone as well as in the repression of puberty. These determinants are therefore most intimately connected with the nature of femininity. -from "The Transformations of Puberty" He was a pioneer in the study of human sexuality and the impact of sexual desire on human behavior, and this 1905 work is considered among his most important contributions to the field. This is the source of such concepts as penis envy, castration anxiety, and the Oedipus complex that we take for granted as fundamental to understanding human psychology. In the three essays here-"The Sexual Aberrations," "Infantile Sexuality," and "The Transformations of Puberty"-Freud sets out a theory of human sexuality that continues to influence us today.