ABSTRACT
The chapter examines the centrality of the psychology of creation in Groddeck’s and Ferenczi’s reflections. Reading their correspondence for discussions on scientific work as a form of creative fertility will enable me to rethink boundaries between literary, artistic, and scientific creation. The final chapter raises the question about the hybridity of genres in psychoanalysis, both in terms of the tension between life writing, literature, and psycho-medical discourses, and between the spoken and written word. I pay particular attention to Ferenczi’s late lifewriting practices. I read his Clinical Diary as an example of valuing speech (the oral situation) over writing (writing practices), which sheds new light on the crucial relationship between listening and writing in psychoanalytic practice. I argue that the oral dimension of the Clinical Diary (a great part of which was dictated by Ferenczi and typed by his secretary) makes it possible to expand the research on the diversity of lifewriting genres in psychoanalytic literature. I interpret Ferenczi’s diary as a written-oral form, which, thanks to his appreciation of the medium of the spoken word, enabled him to extend the situation of the encounter between patient and analyst.
