ABSTRACT
It is now clear in the ninety years since Ferenczi developed the Confusion of Tongues idea that childhood trauma is an important reality in contemporary times. A current and thorough study of adult women showed that 19 percent had an incest history. It is imperative that contemporary psychoanalysis integrates the Confusion of Tongues theory into a new version of a psychoanalytic encounter which can have the following ingredients:
The empathic method is the fundamental means to create understanding, acceptance, trust, safety, and mutuality. It is a way of being for the analyst.
Trauma analysis, developed by Sándor Ferenczi and Elizabeth Severn is the new standard for analyzing psychological trauma disorders. Retrieving, confronting, and analyzing is a central aspect of this therapeutic method. The analyst also is attuned to the incidents of retraumatization in the psychoanalytic situation.
“Analysis of the analyst” is the focus of a two-person analysis, where countertransference is an essential dimension of the analytic process. Any relationship crisis means the analyst is prepared to confront and analyze his/her contribution to therapeutic issues.
Actual retraumatization occurs in the therapeutic relationship when the analyst allows the relationship to contain an erotic component, either provided by the analyst or analysand, that is not analyzed.
Ferenczi introduced the idea of affectionate mother therapeutic philosophy, which provides an emphatic interaction to help provide an erotic-free, nontraumatic therapeutic analytic encounter.
An ethos of clinical experimentation is embraced, where active and noninterpretative measures are integrated into the analytic process to provide an alternative to childhood trauma and repair early emotional wounds.
A therapeutic regression is allowed to unfold where the analysand can reach the archaic traumatized self.
