ABSTRACT
The history of psycho-analysis is full of tragic events and tragic lives. Indeed, it was the heroic age of people movement. Perhaps the most tragic, the most moving history of all is that of Sandor Ferenczi. The material presented here consists of two of his congress papers, together with some of his posthumous notes and fragments, and a few letters written by him to Anna Freud. The developmental stages of the mind are perhaps the most hotly disputed problem of all the controversial issues of psycho-analytical theory. According to Ferenczi, the only way to achieve this is the intentional, planned participation of the educator in all the sexual crises of the child, especially in the Oedipus situation. The safe, optimal level of stimulation must be found and carefully maintained. In fact psychoanalysts should make a deliberate attempt at guiding the various component instincts into healthy genitality, thus preventing the development of unnecessary repressions, reaction formations, perversions and inversions.
