Ferenczi and Winnicott: Why We Need Their Radical Edge: Commentary on Paper by Michael Parsons

Abstract

Parsons's paper, “An Independent Theory of Clinical Technique,” is discussed. Agreement is expressed with many of the theoretical points made by Parsons, and the creative and freeing historical role of the British Independent tradition (recently attacked by Kleinian authors such as Segal) is praised. However, the author sees some of the clinical examples in the paper as expressing a traditionalist conception of psychoanalytic practice, with a strong one-sided emphasis on the analyst as a knowledgeable expert offering deep interpretations. Parsons does not question the nature of the actual intersubjective relationship in each dyad, with its fluctuations and its subtle nuances, which can go far beyond the proclaimed roles of the two partners, at times even reversing them. More radical points of view can be found in the work of Ferenczi and Winnicott, two authors who are significant both for Parsons and for the author; for example, Ferenczi's emphasis on the patient's capacity to interpret the analyst's countertransference, and the experiments with the setting both made in their search for an adaptation to the unique ‘analysand's needs. In conclusion, the paper calls for continued departure from standard techniques of any kind, critically deconstructing all traditional assumptions regarding the analytic process.

Notes

¹I later realized that such exposure would have not been possible at that time had I trained at the New York Psychoanalytic Institute, for example

²This process was facilitated by a discussion of the Relational Reading Group of the Israel Psychoanalytic Society, and I am greatly indebted to all its members.

³While there are points of convergence between Self Psychology and the British Independents, I think Segal is wrong in suggesting that the latter were directly influenced by Kohut.

⁴The love affair between the American Relational tradition and the British Independent tradition has been one-sided from its start. Greenberg and Mitchell (1983) were strongly influenced by British Independents, but in reviewing their book a British Independent analyst, Kohon (1985), bluntly dismissed it. Whereas I agree with some of Kohon's criticisms (e.g., that Greenberg and Mitchell simplify Freud when emphasizing his biological side), I feel that he misses the book's innovative value, and his condescending tone is regrettable.

⁵ Roazen (1998) spoke of an “implied threat on Jones's part” in Jones's correspondence with Balint, after Jones claimed in his Freud biography that Ferenczi was insane at the end of his life (p. 273).

⁶This conviction is not shared by a classically trained American author, McLaughlin (1995), who said, “In my experience the kind of abstinence [Casement] advocates has often led to what I see as iatrogenic wounding and unnecessary suffering” (p. 442).