ABSTRACT
This chapter affirms to look at the Sandor Ferenczi that Thierry Bokanowski finds in the historical material he has chosen. Ferenczi's theoretical and clinical work increasingly moved towards the last years of his life to emphasise the importance of the role of countertransference. Bokanowski illuminates the path, from its first hints to its later elaborations, that culminated in Ferenczi's more mature theory on trauma and therefore on the implications that follow from the centrality of countertransference. In his chronicling of Ferenczi's experiments with mutual analysis, Bokanowski uncovers Ferenczi's well-intentioned missteps, such as his masochistic over-identification with the abused child in his patients and the subsequent complications this posed for the treatments he conducted. In Bokanowski's presentation of the Freud–Ferenczi relationship, one feels the tragic dimension for both men. When Bokanowski examines the key gifts and contributions of Ferenczi, he stresses the clinical insight and many of the deep intra-psychic consequences in which Ferenczi was interested.
