ABSTRACT
Violence is one of the central themes in Ferenczi’s work. Violence can be interpersonal, familial, therapeutic, or social: Ferenczi treats these different aspects simultaneously, since he regards each as inseparable from the others, in their structure as well as in their traumatogenic function. Violence is not a single act, but a series of events, which includes its antecedents as well as its consequences. One consequence of a violent act may be the complete annulment or concealment of the act itself. As Ferenczi describes this process in his emblematic article “Confusion of tongues”:
When the child recovers from such an attack [the trauma], he feels enormously confused, in fact, split – innocent and culpable at the same time – and his confidence in the testimony in his own senses is broken. Moreover, the harsh behaviour of the adult partner tormented and made angry by his remorse renders the child still more conscious of his own guilt and still more ashamed. Almost always the perpetrator behaves as though nothing had happened, and consoles himself with the thought: “Oh it is only a child, he does not know anything, he will forget it all.” Not infrequently after such events, the seducer becomes over-moralistic or religious and endeavours to save the soul of the child by severity.
(Conf, pp. 162–163)