ABSTRACT
Ferenczi's expectations regarding Freud are immense, and he develops a grandiose vision of how a small circle around Freud could collaborate on an ideal level. In the quasi-ideal relationship between Freud and Ferenczi, more and more clouds appear on the horizon. The links between Ferenczi and Otto Rank and their joint book on The Development of Psychoanalysis, as well as Rank's book of the same year (1924), The Trauma of Birth, place Freud in a difficult emotional and political situation. But Ferenczi is not (only) the "son", later he also becomes the analysand, and one cannot analyse, according to Freud, if one has not "overcome" the counter-transference. The analyst has to "recognize this counter-transference in himself and overcome it". All of this leads to a transition in the relationship, to an analysis with Freud, an analysis that even begins before it really starts.
