ABSTRACT
Ferenczi enthusiastically applied Freud’s psychoanalytic methodology (as described in his “Papers on technique” (1911–1914)) in his clinical work with patients. He initially faithfully applied the fundamental rule (free association, abstinence, neutrality) in his technical approach with some success but, inevitably, he treated some patients who did not respond to standard technique. His enthusiasm for the psychoanalytic approach did not waiver however, and he considered the treatment resistance attributable to inadequate technique and not to the intractableness of the patient’s condition (ChildAn). He experimented empirically by varying some of the basic technical parameters, reporting his observations on the outcomes of his experimentation in various early papers on active technique (1919, 1921, 1924, 1925b). A closer examination of these papers and “Contra-indications to the active psycho-analytical technique” (1925a) will be useful in understanding how he refuted his early experiments and arrived at the principles of elasticity and relaxation in technique. Ferenczi’s innovations, although suppressed for over half a century, were harbingers of contemporary psychoanalytic technique.
