THE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL
OF

PSYCHO-ANALYSIS

VOLUME XIV JULY 1933 PART 3

SANDOR FERENCZI

Experience has taught us that wishing costs little, and so we
generously present each other with the best and warmest
wishes. Among these the one for a long life takes first place.
The ambivalency of just this wish is discovered in a well-known
oriental anecdote. A Sultan got two soothsayers to cast his
horoscope. ‘ Happiness will be thine, Lord’, said the one ;
“it is written in the stars that thou shalt see all thy relatives
die before thee’. This seer was executed. ‘ Happiness will
be thine’, said the other, too; ‘for I read in the stars that
thou wilt survive all thy relatives’. This one was richly
rewarded. Both had given expression to the same wish-
fulfilment. 5

In January 1926 it was my lot to write an obituary notice
for our unforgettable friend, Karl Abraham. A few years
before, in 1923, I could felicitate Sändor Ferenczi on complet-
ing his fiftieth year. To-day, a bare decade later, it pains me
to learn that I have survived him too. In what I wrote in
celebration of his birthday I might publicly praise his many-
sidedness and originality, the wealth of his talents : discretion
forbade a friend to speak of his lovable and benevolent
Personality, one that welcomed all in life that had significance.

Since the time when interest for the young science of
psycho-analysis led him to me we had shared much with each
other. Iinvited him to accompany me when I was called to
Worcester, Massachusetts, in 1909, to lecture there during a
Commemoration week. Every morning, before the hour of my

SIGMUND FREUD

lecture, we would stroll together before the University build-
ings ; I would ask him to suggest what I should talk about that
day and he would sketch out for me what I would then
improvise half an hour later. This was his share in the ‘ Fünf
Vorlesungen ’. Soon after this, at the Nuremberg Congress in
1910, I got him to propose the organization of analysts into
an International Association, as we had planned it together.
This was accepted with minor modifications and still obtains.
We spent together in Italy the summer holidays of several
successive years, and a number of papers which appeared later
under his or my name first took form there in our talks. When
the World War broke out, put an end to our freedom of
movement and also paralysed our analytical activities, he
made use of the interval to begin his analysis with me; this
was then interrupted through his being called up for service,
but was continued later. The sure feeling of belonging
together which had grown between us during so many common
experiences remained undisturbed when, unfortunately too
late in life, he married the admirable wife who to-day mourns
him.

A decade ago, when the Internationaler Zeitschrift and the
International Journal dedicated a special number to Ferenczi’s
fiftieth birthday, most of the contributions which have made
all analysts his pupils had already been published. But
his most brilliant achievement, and the richest in thought,
he had still kept in reserve. I knew of it and exhorted him
at the end of my message of greeting to give it to us. In
1924 there then appeared his ‘ Versuch einer Genitaltheorie.’
This booklet was a biological rather than a psycho-analytical
study, an application to the biology of sexual processes—and
beyond this to organic life in general—of the points of view
and insight that psycho-analysis had co-ordinated ; it is
perhaps the boldest application of analysis ever attempted.
Its leading thought was the emphasis laid on the conservative
nature of the instincts, which strive to restore every state
surrendered through outer disturbances; symbols were
recognized to be signs of old connections ; it was shewn by
impressive examples how psychical peculiarities retain the

OBITUARY: SANDOR FERENCZI

traces of primeval changes in bodily substance. On reading
those essays one felt that one understood numerous singulari-
ties of sexual life which one had never previously been able to
survey in their connection, and one felt enriched by suggestions
which promise far-reaching vistas over wide fields of biology.
In vain we to-day try to divide what may be accepted as
probable knowledge from what, by a sort of scientific fancy,
seeks to divine future knowledge. One put aside the little
book with the conclusion : That is almost too much for one
time ; I willread it again after a while. And this was not only
my experience. In all probability there will some time really
be a ‘ Bio-Analysis’, as Ferenczi has proclaimed, and it will
surely have recourse to the ‘ Versuch einer Genitaltheorie ’.

After this peak in his achievements our friend slowly
began to slide away from us. After returning from a season
of work in America he seemed to withdraw himself more and
more into working alone, he who till then had always taken the
liveliest share in everything going on in analytical circles. We
gathered that one problem alone absorbed his interest. The
need to heal and to help had become imperious. Probably he
had set himself aims that to-day are not to be reached with
our therapeutic means. From affective sources, imperfectly
| drained, he was persuaded that we could accomplish far more
with our patients if we gave them enough of the love they had
longed for in childhood. He wanted to discover how that was
to be put into practice within the boundaries of the psycho-
| analytic situation, and until he could succeed in this he kept

apart, probably no longer sure of his accord with his friends.
Where the path he had chosen would have led him we do not
know, since he could not follow it to its end. Signs were
gradually revealed of the severe organic process of destruction
which had doubtless cast its shadow over his life for years past.
It was a pernicious anzmia, to which he succumbed shortly
before completing his sixtieth year. We cannot believe that
the history of our science will ever forget him.

Sigm. Freud.

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