INTRODUCING THALASSA

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Notes

1 Nicolas Abraham’s introduction prefaces the first French edition of Sándor Ferenczi’s incomparable text Thalassa: A Theory of Genitality. The text I have translated is Nicolas Abraham’s “Présentation de Thalassa,” which prefaces the French edition Thalassa: Psychanalyse des origines de la vie sexuelle, trans. Judith Dupont and Sylvio Samama (Paris: Petite Bibliothèque Payot, 1962). All subsequent notes are Abraham’s from the original text. I have given the English edition of cited books and essays where possible and have otherwise translated titles into English when appropriate. © Editions Flammarion, Paris, 1978.

2 First published as Sándor Ferenczi, Versuch einer Genitaltheorie (Wien: Internationaler Psychoanalytischer Verlag, 1924).

3 From Sándor Ferenczi, “The Origins and Disappearance of Neurotic Symptom” [in Hungarian] (Budapest, 1913) Preface.

4 See Sigmund Freud, “Beyond the Pleasure Principle,” SE XVIII, 1–64 (1920).

5 See Sigmund Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams, SE IV and V (1900 [1899]).

6 See Sándor Ferenczi, “On the Definition of Introjection,” Final Contribution to the Problems and Methods of Psychoanalysis, ed. and trans. Michael Balint (New York: Basic, 1955) 316–18 (original work published 1912).

7 The quotes here are from Ferenczi’s collected writing on hysteria, Hystérie und Pathoneurosen (Wein: Internationaler Psychoanalytischer Verlag, 1919). This has not been translated into English as a complete text, but its separate essays have. The quotes, some of which I have modified, are from Sándor Ferenczi, “The Phenomena of Hysterical Materialization,” Further Contributions to the Theory and Technique of Psychoanalysis, ed. John Rickman (London: Hogarth, 1951) 89–104 [translator’s note].

8 These views do not necessarily imply an evolutionism of the Lamarckian type, based on the inheritance of acquired characteristics – although Ferenczi preferred this theory, which is closer to psychoanalytic thinking than the various forms of Darwinism.

9 See Franz Alexander, Psychosomatic Medicine: Its Principles and Applications (New York: Norton, 1950).