Impossible Training

A Relational View of Psychoanalytic Education

Emanuel Berman

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781135061760
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psicologia
• Subtopic: Psicologia applicata

Over the past century psychoanalysis has gone on to establish training institutes, professional societies, accreditation procedures, and models of education, thus bringing into uneasy alliance all three impossible pursuits. In Impossible Training: A Relational View of Psychoanalytic Education, Emanuel Berman turns his attention to the current status and future prospects of this daunting project.

Berman is ideally suited to tackle the impossibility of psychoanalytic education. A graduate of two psychoanalytic institutes, one in Israel and one in America, he has devoted much of his professional life to psychoanalytic education and the organizational issues embedded in it. In Impossible Training, Berman describes the complex emotional and organizational dynamics of psychoanalytic training. Placing these issues within the context of major controversies in psychoanalytic history, he shows how generations of students have either idealized a "proper analytic identity, " which evolves into a persecutory ideal, or rebelled against these standards. Are such persecuting and infantilizing trends inherent in analytic training, he asks, or can psychoanalytic education transcend them through changes in its structure and rules?

For Berman, the relational and intersubjective trends in contemporary psychoanalysis call for changes in analytic supervision, not least of which is heightened attentiveness to the many relationships that gain expression in the supervisory process. Envisioned in this relational manner, supervision can become a more personal experience, less guarded, and more conducive to the development of a fertile transitional space between supervisor and supervisee. Anchoring his consideration of the present in the controversies of the past, Berman concludes by considering the mission of psychoanalytic educators today: to provide trainees with the resources to cope creatively with the as yet unknown challenges of tomorrow.

1

Freud and Ferenczi:
Their Generative Dyad as a Springboard for a Relational View of Treatment and Training

Nothing is more harmful to the analysis than a schoolmasterish, or even an authoritative, attitude on the physician's part. Anything we say to the patient should be put to him in the form of a tentative suggestion and not of a confidently held opinion, not only to avoid irritating him, but because there is always the possibility that we may be mistaken.

—Sandor Ferenczi
“The Elasticity of Psycho-Analytic Technique”

In this chapter, I explore the development of Sándor Ferenczi (1873–1933), as a person and as an analyst, against the background of his intense relationship with Sigmund Freud (1856–1939). Their interaction formed a lively generative dyad in which a strong mutual influence evolved, and their continual dialogue set the context of many current issues of psychoanalytic practice, training, and supervision.

Ferenczi was Freud's student, colleague, analysand (briefly), and close friend for 25 years—from their first meeting, mediated by Jung, in 1908, when Ferenczi was already a successful psychiatrist and therapist in Budapest at age 35 and Freud was 52, to 1933, the year of Ferenczi's untimely death from pernicious anemia at age 59 (Haynal, 1988; Stanton, 1991).

The history of their complex relationship has come to light only recently with the full publication of their intense correspondence (Brabant, Falzeder, and Giampieri-Deutsch, 1993; Falzeder and Brabant, 1996, 2000),¹ though a full biography of Ferenczi is still sorely missing. How interconnected their theoretical and clinical debates and their personal lives were has now become clear (Berman, 1996; Aron, 1998).

Ferenczi's work predating his meeting with Freud has also become better known recently, and his early papers highlight many of his lifelong concerns. Ferenczi (1899) wrote in his paper on spiritism, “I do believe that at the heart of these phenomena there is truth, even if it is a subjective truth rather than an objective truth” (p. 7). Subjective truth is a major theme in all of Ferenczi's work, and a clear thread can be identified between his early interest in “spiritualist” interpersonal influence and his later fascination with transference and countertransference. “Two Errors in Diagnosis” (Ferenczi, 1900) opens with, “There is an old saying that errors are at the root of most learning. But, in fact, we jealously guard the lessons that we draw from personal experience so that we can appear knowledgeable to our peers” (p. 9). This is Ferenczi's first allusion to the “professional hypocrisy” that preoccupied him toward the end of his life. And in “Love Within Science,” Ferenczi (1901) stated, “It is useless to explain the attraction between men and women as merely a derivative of lust” (p. 13); indeed, the value of love and its place in treatment continued to concern him all his life (Lothane, 1998).

The First, Stormy Years of the Freud-Ferenczi Dialogue

The Freud-Ferenczi relationship and their discourse went through many complex stages, so that any concise summary of the emotional and theoretical position taken by each man is un-avoidably oversimplified. Still, some continual themes are prominent. From their first letters, one notices the contrast between Freud's belief in the benefits of a firm hierarchical structure regulating the interaction between the sexes, between generations, and between patients and therapists (a structure in which boundaries are firm and knowledge is passed on or withheld wisely and cautiously) and Ferenczi's oppositional enthusiasm about equality, openness, and mutuality, about blurring boundaries, transcending hierarchies, and sharing knowledge freely (Aron, 1998). The two opposing stances come up first in the context of the men's differing images of their own friendship: Ferenczi wanted Freud to be more open with him and fantasized becoming Freud's therapist to help him overcome his reserved position, which Freud preferred to maintain.

Ferenczi's very first letters seem to convey an idealizing transference, a touching search for a substitute father (Sándor's beloved father died when he was 15) and anxious concerns about potential rejection. The first letter starts with, “I am very grateful to you that you have declared yourself ready to receive me, unknown that I am” (Brabant et al., 1993, p. 1).

When writing his first major psychoanalytic paper, “Introjection and Transference,” Ferenczi (1909), in a particularly telling letter, expressed a wish to avoid having Freud's work compared with his own and was concerned that his paper “loses its justification after the publication of your work” (p. 31). Freud reassured him, “I don't have the feeling of being the ‘benefactor’ towards you and others and thus do [not] tie to my actions the justified fears of which you speak” (p. 33). Ferenczi, always attentive to Freud's slips of the pen, confronted him (p. 35) with his omission of the word not, and Freud attributed this quintessential Freudian slip to a bad migraine (p. 36). In episodes such as this, Ferenczi's independence of mind can be seen to be emerging, even if cautiously.

The paper itself is most innovative and has never lost its justification, as Ferenczi feared. Portraying introjection of the other (a concept here created by Ferenczi) as a central building block in forming one's personality, the paper focuses on “the first ‘object-love’ and the first ‘object-hate’” (Ferenczi, 1909, p. 42). It also outlines for the first time the process of gradual differentiation between inner and outer—a cornerstone in the subsequent work of Klein and others: “To the new-born child everything perceived by the senses appears unitary….only later does he learn to distinguish from his ego the malicious things, forming an outer world, that do not obey his will” (p. 41).

Indeed, the most striking early example of the theoretical impact of the Freud-Ferenczi relationship is the way Freud accepted and used Ferenczi's original idea of introjection. However, though Ferenczi in this pioneering work conceptualized introjection as a basic universal phenomenon (paving the way for a view of object relations as fundamental to emotional life), Freud used the idea much more selectively and in specific instances (introjecting the lost person in mourning, superego formation, etc.) and never allowed object relations a central role in his model, on a par with drives.

In the same paper, there are other expressions of Ferenczi's unique beliefs about life—notably his warm description of the “large-hearted, impressionable, excitable neurotic … taking into his ego [introjecting] as large as possible a part of the outer world,”contrasted with disdain for the projection-prone, “narrow-souled, suspicious paranoiac” who “expels from his ego the impulses that have become unpleasant” (pp. 40–41). Ferenczi seemed to be able to identify in himself this large-hearted, excitable quality, and his openness to the world often caused him much pain as well. In the second part of the paper, dealing with transference in hypnosis (hypnosis equated with suggestion and interpersonal influence, in the Bernheim tradition; Ferenczi identified with Bernheim more than Freud did [Aron, 1996b]), we learn much about Ferenczi's rich experience as a therapist and hear of his conceptualization of two paths of effective treatment — one based on fear (“father hypnosis”) and the other on love (“mother hypnosis”).

The Freud-Ferenczi correspondence goes on intensively. The men met often, spent summer holidays together, and traveled together, along with Jung, to the United States. In 1909, aboard the George Washington, the three men conducted a sort of “mutual analysis” of one another, and Jung was frustrated by Freud's reticence. The Freud-Jung bond had been marred by the first letters Freud received from Sabina Spielrein regarding her love affair with her therapist, Jung, and by Jung's initial deceitful denial (Kerr, 1993). The Freud-Jung friendship collapsed within the next four years —making Ferenczi an even more vital ally for Freud. But already every morning at Clark University, Freud had planned with Ferenczi the talk he was to give that day (Freud, 1910d, 1933).

Freud's and Ferenczi's differences in outlook regarding boundaries and openness colored their discussions of Ferenczi's complicated personal life, which centered on his intense relationships with two women —his loyal friend and lover, Gizella Pálos, who eventually became his wife, and her young, stormy, and attrac-tive daughter, Elma. This is a drama in which Freud, whose own marriage to Martha was remote (Gay, 1988), was an active partner—always warning his younger friend about confiding too much in either woman. Freud also took sides— favoring the mother and disparaging the daughter.

Ferenczi first wrote Freud about Gizella in 1909. Sándor and Gizella had had a love affair since 1900 (Falzeder and Brabant, 1996, p. 141). By 1909, he was 36 years old and still single; she was 44, unhappily married, and the mother of two daughters, Elma (almost 22 years old) and Magda (20 years old). In 1909, Magda married Sándor's younger brother, Lajos. Ferenczi wrote Freud of his bond with Gizella, “The difficult and painful operation of producing complete candor in me and in my relationship with her is proceeding rapidly” (Brabant et al., 1993, p. 87). Ferenczi continued:

The confession that I made to her, the superiority with which, after some reluctance, she correctly grasped the situation, and the truth which is possible between us makes it seem perhaps less possible for me to tie myself to another woman in the long run, even though I admitted to her and to myself having sexual desires towards other women and even reproached her for her age. Evidently I have too much in her: lover, friend, mother, and, in scientific matters, a pupil, i.e., the child [p. 88].

Ferenczi was “eagerly at work analyzing” his lover (p. 90), by which he probably meant their soul-searching conversations rather than a structured analysis. Freud had his doubts:

It belongs to the ABC of our worldview that the sexual life of a man can be something different from that of a woman, and it is only a sign of respect when one does not conceal this from a woman. Whether the requirement of absolute truthfulness does not sin against the postulate of expediency and against the intentions of love I would not like to respond to in the negative without qualification, and I urge caution. Truth is only the absolute goal of science, but love is a goal of life [p. 122].

Later in the same letter, Freud, responding to Ferenczi's desire to cure people, suggested another lasting and fateful difference between them: “This need to help is lacking in me, and I now see why, because I did not lose anyone whom I loved in my early years” (p. 122).²

A few months later, Ferenczi mentioned Gizella's “concern for her unmarried daughter [Elma] and for the two-sided (partly communal) relationship” (p. 157). He still did not know how complicated this “commune” was going to become; at this point, it involved only the marriage of Magda and Lajos.

The most conflictual event between Freud and Ferenczi in the early years of their friendship was an incident during their joint vacation in Palermo in 1910 —an incident alluded to in the correspondence and described more fully in Ferenczi's letter to Grod-deck on Christmas Day 1921: “As a result, on our very first working evening together in Palermo, when he wanted to work with me on the famous paranoia text (Schreber), and started to dictate something, I jumped up in a sudden rebellious outburst, exclaiming that this was no working together, dictating to me” (Fortune, 2002, pp. 8–9).

After returning home, Ferenczi mentioned their difficulties in Palermo, and Freud responded in a reassuring but patronizing tone: “I think back about your company on the trip only with warm and pleasant feelings, although I often felt sorry for you because of your disappointment….I would have wished for you to tear yourself away from the infantile role and take your place next to me as a companion with equal rights” (Brabant et al., 1993, p. 215). Freud assumed Ferenczi was disappointed because he was “quite an ordinary old gentleman,” far from a “fantasy ideal,” but Ferenczi disagreed, saying that the reason for his being inhibited and taciturn was quite different: “I was longing for personal, uninhibited, cheerful companionship with you … and I felt —perhaps unjustifiably —forced back into the infantile role” (p. 217). Ferenczi described his idea of

companionship between two men who tell each other the truth unrelentingly, sacrificing all consideration. Just as in my relationship with Frau G. I strive for absolute mutual openness, in the same manner,… I believed that this, appar-ently cruel but in the end only useful, clear-as-day openness, which conceals nothing, could be possible in [our] relations. … But what I forgot—in my egocentric blind-ness — was that these things didn't move you at all [p. 218].

Although Ferenczi accused himself of exaggerating and of being inconsiderate, he was clearly committed to mutual openness as a value —the same commitment that culminated with his method of mutual analysis two decades later.

Freud, referring to the traumatic ending of his close friendship with Fliess, answered, “I no longer have any need for that full opening of my personality” (p. 221). Ferenczi insisted, “I do not want to give up hope that you will… bring more sympathy to bear toward my ‘ideal of honesty.’ You know: I am an unimpeachable therapist” (p. 224). This fantasy of himself as Freud's therapist, though it went underground later, was central to Ferenczi's experience of their relationship.

The dilemmas regarding degrees of involvement and openness once again appeared around the question of relating to a woman, but this time Gizella's daughter, Elma. Planning a trip to Vienna with Gizella and Elma, Ferenczi asked Freud for permission “to ask [Freud's] advice in a rather difficult matter (marriage and love affair of that same daughter)” (p. 248). Freud surprised Ferenczi by diagnosing Elma as having a mild case of “dementia praecox” (probably the equivalent of a borderline diagnosis today), and this response had a “rather depressing effect” on Ferenczi (p. 253). Half a year later, Ferenczi reported that he was honoring Gizella's wish and had taken Elma into psychoanalytic treatment: “The effect is favorable. Of course, she has to talk much more about me than other patients do, but that is not turning out to be an absolute hindrance” (p. 296). Freud wished him success but warned, in line with his beliefs, “I fear that it will go well up to a certain point and then not at all. While you're at it, don't sacrifice too many of your secrets out of an excess of kindness” (p. 296).

Elma's analysis suffered a setback when a man she was interested in shot himself on her account. (In her July 5,1966 letter to Balint, Elma erroneously attributed the beginning of her analysis to that event; Berman, 2004.) Ferenczi realized, “I wanted to commit a terrible act of violence. Dissatisfied with both parents [Freud and Gizella], I wanted to make myself independent!” He reported fantasies about marrying Elma —fantasies that he indicated had begun before the analysis; a talk with Gizella, however, led Ferenczi to conclude that his attraction to “young, pretty crea-tures” was only an attempt to mask his fixation on Gizella (p. 312).

In the same letter, Ferenczi dealt with his relationship with the “other transferential parent,” Freud, and with Freud's attempt to avoid giving too much opportunity for his transference, his attempt to make himself independent in reaction, a “phase of my struggle for freedom” (p. 312). Freud responded by addressing Ferenczi “Dear son” (p. 314; he used to write “Dear colleague,” then “Dear friend”) and by disregarding the developments with Elma, which seemed deeply related to their relationship.

Ferenczi then reported, “I was not able to maintain the cool detachment of the analyst with regard to Elma, and I laid myself bare, which then led to a kind of closeness which I can no longer put forth as the benevolence of the physician or of the fatherly friend” (p. 318). Fifty-five years later, in her July 5,1966 letter to Balint, Elma described the event: “Sándor got up from his chair behind me, sat on the sofa next to me and, considerably moved, kissed me all over and passionately told me how much he loved me” (Berman, 2004). She blamed herself: “I was a young girl with a fiery spirit.… I was an evil seducer, I was only thinking about myself and did not care about my victims. But perhaps I was not evil at all, only the slave of nature” (p. 514).

We must remember, of course, that in 1911, when this event took place, the ethical norms of psychoanalysis and psychotherapy were far from evolved. Actually, dramas such as this one (as well as Jung's entanglement with Sabina Spielrein), which led Freud (1915) to deal thoughtfully with the issues of transference-love, gradually contributed to the formation of sharper boundaries in psychoanalytic treatment (Gabbard and Lester, 1995). Still, such boundary violations were as likely to be destructive then as they are now, as I demonstrated in my study of Elma's subsequent life (Berman, 2004).

Ferenczi told Gizella what happened; she was “unstintingly kind and loving.” He thought of his wish for a family, complicated by Gizella's age (Brabant et al., 1993, p. 318). Freud responded, “First break off treatment, come to Vienna for a few days … don't decide anything yet” (pp. 318–319). Two weeks later, Freud sent Ferenczi a letter for Gizella...