ABSTRACT
According to Herbert Marcuse “psychoanalytic categories do not have to be ‘related’ to social and political conditions—they are themselves social and political categories” (1970). José Brunner (2001) and Peter Homans (1989) are among those who offer political readings of Freud’s writings. While the former puts to the fore Freud’s tendency to opt for authoritarian solutions, the latter considers psychoanalysis as part of the modernisation process that swept across the West. I will neither endorse nor contest these arguments. The main purpose of this chapter is to provide a political reading of Sándor Ferenczi’s psychoanalytic theory and practice and explore the many ways through which Freud’s grand vizier expressed his refusal of all forms of authoritarianism and his call for a free and autonomous society. My argument is that the development of Ferenczi’s new methods is intimately linked to his disappointment not only with the classic Freudian technique, but also with the increasingly authoritarian nature of the various political regimes that succeeded each other in Hungary.
