ABSTRACT
Sandor Ferenczi became a key figure in the evolving psychoanalytic movement, both domestically and internationally. Like Freud Berggasse, Ferenczi viewed psychoanalysis as a theory, a therapeutic tool, a way of thinking, and a framework for understanding the diverse manifestations of human nature. Ferenczi laboured tirelessly, publishing his new theoretical and therapeutic approaches, chiefly in Hungarian and German. He described a host of neurotic processes that had arisen under the effect of traumatic experiences that can be categorised among the pathomechanisms of conversion hysteria. His role as catalyst was as necessary for a rapid and efficient development that went beyond the bounds of the field of psychoanalysis, as indeed was the close co-operation of the newly initiated. Compared to other large European cities, such as Vienna, Zurich, and Moscow, where psychoanalytic societies were also being formed in the late 1910s, Budapest was truly unique in the degree to which psychoanalysis had become embedded in the culture.
