ABSTRACT
Exploration of a series of links between Sandor Ferenczi's and Ronald Fairbairn’s theories, aspects of which are already known and discussed by others, notably Jay Frankel, and some which the author suggest are important but unrecognised parallels between their theories. Fairbairn argued that his theory was ideally suited to understanding multiple personality disorder and its origins in repeated traumas during childhood, a point that Ferenczi seems to be already familiar with. Fairbairn had books by Ferenczi in his personal library that predate the development of his own object relations theory—Contributions to Psycho-Analysis and The Development of Psychoanalysis, co-authored with Otto Rank. The full development of the relationship between Fairbairn and Ferenczi would require a detailed examination of Fairbairn's underlining of these texts. Fairbairn makes the transitional period that follows the establishment of the basic endopsychic structure a significant phase of development and the location of the psychoneuroses.
