Introduction

Part I provides a biographical-historical foundation for understanding Ferenczi’s psychoanalytic contributions most fully. In this section, we get an overview of Ferenczi’s personal and professional life, from its beginnings to its end, and trace the evolution of Ferenczi’s thinking within this context. We see the places and meet some of the important people—family, friends, colleagues, patients—that shaped him as a person and contributed to the development of his ideas. We learn of his role in developing the institutions of organised psychoanalysis, and read of his presence in the Hungarian popular press.