Section V - Continuing Education

Ferenczi's "Confusion of Tongues" Paper: A Turning Point in the Understanding and Treatment of Trauma

Commentary by Arnold Wm. Rachman, Ph.D., F.A.G.P.A.

Ferenczi delivered his "Confusion of Tongues" paper at the 12th International Psycho-Analytic Congress in Wiesbaden, German, on Sunday, September 4th, 1932, in the small assembly hall of the Hotel Rose, under the worst of circumstances. Europe was on the verge of totalitarianism. Freud could not attend the 12th Congress because of illness, since his mouth cancer was causing him great physical distress. Ferenczi was also ill, suffering from the impending collapse of his body to pernicious anemia (Rachman, 1997a,b). The presentation was also overshadowed by the growing personal and professional conflict between Freud and Ferenczi. Freud had become overtly critical of Ferenczi as manifested in the famous "kissing Letter" (Jones, 1957, p.197). In this letter, Freud became alarmed about Ferenczi's "relaxation therapy" (Ferenczi, 1930) where he allows therapeutic touch to help repair childhood trauma (Rachman, 1998). Freud admonished Ferenczi for encouraging sexual contact, when in actuality, he was allowing affectionate interaction, akin to a parent showing love for a child. The controversy was developed from Ferenczi's treatment of Clara Thompson (later one of the founders of Interpersonal Psychoanalysis). Thompson bragged to colleagues that Ferenczi allowed her to kiss him, anytime she wished. Freud did not understand that Thompson had initiated the physical gesture and Ferenczi had consented to provide a reparative therapeutic measure. The "therapeutic touching" was intended to repair the abusive parenting Thompson had received as a child, when she suffered sexual and emotional traumas (Ferenczi, 1932). Ferenczi's experiments with trauma cases would develop into the first alternative development within mainstream psychoanalysis (Gedo, 1986, pp. 36-50).

Balint, another Ferenczi analyst and and student, would refine and expand the theory and treatment of childhood trauma (Balint, 1968). In fact, Balint would argue that Freud did not understand the theoretical issues of "the basic fault" and working in "the zone of regression," which are essential to the analys and treatment of non-oedipal cases.

Ferenczi was in the most difficult position of his clinical career with the presentation of the COT paper. On the one hand he wished to be faithful to his mentor Freud by sharing his new ideas in a respectful way. But, he also wanted to be true to his own clinical research and treatment innovations with trauma. In order to prevent a split between himself and Freud over the ideas contained in the COT paper, Ferenczi asked for a meeting, before the presentation, with his mentor.

Freud and Ferenczi met on Thursday, September 1, 1932 at about 4 o'clock to discuss the Wiesbaden presentation (Molnar, 1992, p. 131). Freud did not want Ferenczi to deliver this paper, having sent a telegram to Eitingon on August 29, 1932 detailing his objections (Sylwan, 1984, p. 108). Freud was "thunderstruck" that Ferenczi would present a view that "sexual traumas of childhood are the regular cause of neurosis," in the same language Freud originally proposed in 1896 (Letter, S. Freud to A. Freud, September 3, 1932 Molnar, 1992, p. 131). Apparently, Freud was furious with Ferenczi that he proposed sexual trauma was causal factor in the development of psychopathology, Freud believed that psychoanalysis had progressed by abandoning the seduction theory for the oedipal theory of neurosis (Mason, 1984). Freud was adamant that the oedipal complex was the cornerstone of analytic theory. As Balint, was to point out, Freud was not clinically comfortable working with trauma cases (Balint, 1968). Freud did admit he had difficulty with "playing the tender mother" in the transference (Rachman, 1997a). Freud, therefore, had intellectual and emotional difficulties in accepting the COT theory.

Freud refused to shake Ferenczi's hand as they finished their meeting (Fromm, 1959 pp. 64-65, f 3). Ferenczi was emotionally traumatized by this last meeting with Freud (Balint, 1968), but was not deterred from presenting his paper. The reaction to the Ferenczi's Wiesbaden presentation was negative: "Its scientific contentions [COT paper] and its statements about analytic practice are just a tissue of delusions_" (Letter from Joan Rivière to Ernest Jones, Jones Archive, London-Masson, 1984, p. 152).

Once the presentation was over, the negative reaction carried over to the publication of the paper. Jones, in consultation with Freud, decided not to publish the COT paper in English in the International (Letter from Jones to Freud, Jones Archive, London-Masson, 1984, pp. 151-152). The unavailability of the COT paper in English until 1949 (Balint, 1949) and the trauma to the psychoanalytic community caused by the Freud/Ferenczi conflict, overshadowed the meaning and significance of the COT paper (Rachman, 1997a,b).

The COT paper was a turning point in psychoanalysis for several important reasons. Ferenczi extended Freud's original, pioneering clinical observations and theoretical conclusions regarding the significance of sexual seduction in the etiology of neurosis and more severe psychological disorders. Ferenczi described from the vantage point of his pioneering empathic method, experiences of sexual trauma from the subjective experience of the child. This was the first such presentation of the psychodynamics of sexual seduction which produced trauma, from the vantage point of individual's subjective experience. Ferenczi's presentation of the psychodynamics of sexual seduction was a theory of trauma based upon the actual disturbances in the object-relations of family interaction. As such it linked Freud's early formulations of seductions (Freud, 1954) with the evolution of psychoanalytic clinical observation and theory formulations. Ferenczi's observations of the psychopathology evident in "difficult cases" indicated that invariably, childhood molestation was a significant factor. His cases which he explicated in his Clinical Diary (Ferenczi, 1932) clearly illustrated that sexual traumas were the most parsimonious explanation for psychological disorders (Rachman, 1994, 1997a, 2002). Psychiatric and psychological research in modern times indicate that Ferenczi was prophetic in his observation that childhood seduction and the resultant trauma underlie borderline conditions, multiple personality disorder, sexual perversions, eating disorders, and contributed to mood and affect disorders, and phobic reactions (Rachman, 1993). Ferenczi's treatment of his "difficult cases" introduced the first dissident theory and method in psychoanalysis (Gedo, 1986). It was the further extension of Ferenczi's empathic method that stimulated the treatment strategy devised to encourage re-enactment and analysis of the trauma (Rachman, 1988, 1989, 1997a, 2002).

References:

1. Balint, M. (Ed.) (1949). Sándor Ferenczi Number. Inter. I. Psa. 30: Whole No.4.

2. Balint, M. (1968). The Basic Fault: Therapeutic Aspects of Regression. London: Tavistock.

3. Ferenczi, S. (1930). The principle of relaxation and neocatharsis, Int. J. Psychoanalysis, 1930, 11, 428.

4. Ferenczi, S. (1932). The Clinical Diary of Sándor Ferenczi. J. Dupont (Ed.) [Translated by M. Balint & N.Z. Jackson]. Cambridge, MA.: Harvard University Press, 1988.

5. Ferenczi, S. (1933). The Confusion of Tongues Between Adults and Children: The Language of Tenderness and of Passion. Sándor Ferenczi Number. M. Balint (Ed.) International Journal of Psycho-Analysis 30: Whole No.4, 1949 [The First English Translation of the COT].

6. Fromm, E. (1959). Sigmund Freud's Mission. New York: Harper & Row.

7. Gedo, J.E. (1986). Ferenczi: Psychoanalysis' First Dissident. In Conceptual Issues In Psychoanalysis: Essays in History and Method. Hillsdale, N.J.: The Analytic Press.

8. Jones, E. (1957). The Life and Work of Sigmund Freud. Vol III: Last Phase: 1919-1939. New York: Basic Books.

9. Masson, J.M. (1984). The Assault on Truth: Freud's Suppression of the Seduction Theory. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux.

10. Molnar, M. (1992). The Diary of Sigmund Freud: 1929-1939: A Record of the Final Decade. New York: Charles Scribner & Sons.

11. Rachman, A.W. (1988). The Rule of Empathy: Sándor Ferenczi's Pioneering Contributions to the Empathic Method In Psychoanalysis. Journal American Academy of Psychoanalysis. 16:1, 1-27, January.

12. Rachman, A.W. (1989). Confusion of Tongues: The Ferenczian Metaphor for Childhood Seduction and Emotional Trauma. Journal American Academy Psychoanalysis 17:2, 181-205.

13. Rachman, A.W. (1994).

14. Rachman, A.W. (1997a). Sándor Ferenczi: The Psychoanalyst of Tenderness and Passion. Northvale, N.J.: Jason Aronson, (In press).

15. Rachman, A,W. (1997b).

16. Sylwan, B. (1984). An Untoward Event: Oú la Guerre de Trauma de Breuer à Freud de Jones à Ferenczi. Cahiers Confrontation. 2:101-115, Automme.

17. Rachman, A.W. (1998).

18. Rachman, A.W. (2002). Psychotherapy of "Difficult Cases": Flexibility and Responsiveness in Contemporary Practice. Madison, Conn.: Psychosocial Press.