The Cut and the Building of Psychoanalysis: Sigmund Freud and Sandor Ferenczi, Volume 2

282 Pages·2017·1.442 MB·English

by  Carlo Bonomi

‘Carlo Bonomi is a master detective. In the two volumes of The Cut he attempts to
decipher Freud’s emotional world and its impact on his theories. Uncovering many
new facts, and boldly connecting and re-interpreting known facts, he outlines the
place of male and female circumcision, seen at that time as a measure preventing
dangerous masturbation, in Freud’s life and work. In the second volume he suggests
that Freud’s close disciple and friend Ferenczi absorbed Freud’s preoccupation with
symbolic castration, but transformed it into his innovative theory of trauma, which
aroused Freud’s ambivalence.’
– Emanuel Berman, Ph.D., Training and Supervising
Analyst, Israel Psychoanalytic Society, Tel Aviv, Israel
‘With a deep knowledge of Freud’s life and work, particularly as it is revealed
through autobiographical notes and correspondences, Bonomi attempts to formu-
late a new narrative of Master Sigmund’s evolution. The proposed hypothesis is
fascinating, well documented and very innovative and enlightening. This second
volume completes the oeuvre convincingly. A pleasure to read.’
– André E. Haynal M.D., Psychoanalyst (IPA) and Professor,
University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland
‘By shedding a new light into the traumatic origins of psychoanalysis, Carlo
Bonomi provides a meaningful and extremely rich context for the Freud-Ferenczi
confl ict. In his articulated narrative the author leans on the most founding dreams
of the two men, their personal story, their deafnesses (in particular on Freud’s
neglect of the feminine), their most impressing cases as well as on mythologies and
religions. Using all these elements, he shows how the theories of Freud and Ferenczi
took their origin in all these sources, developed, intertwining, confronting or com-
pleting each other and fi nally resulting in a cut between their two conceptions of
psychoanalysis which had lasting consequences on the evolution of the psychoana-
lytic community, its ways of thinking and practising.’
– Dr Judith Dupont, Psychoanalyst, Member of Association
Psychanalytique de France, Paris, France
‘Carlo Bonomi is indeed an original interpreter of the complex and complicated
various steps of Freud in founding psychoanalysis. In the pages of the second
volume of The Cut and the Building of Psychoanalysis he continues his journey into the
origins of psychoanalysis, extending his exploration from Freud’s mind to the
minds of other classic authors, principally Sándor Ferenczi, who, though not in
open opposition with the Master, created a new language for trauma, offering
many elements of a metapsychology much more respectful of patients and closer
to their suffering. I can only recommend this alternative narrative of the building
of psychoanalysis to all the people interested and curious in the still partially secret
history of psychoanalysis, because I am sure that any reader will gain a lot inde-
pendently from agreeing or not with its principal theses.’
– Franco Borgogno, Training and Supervising Psychoanalyst
of the Italian Psychoanalytical Society (IPA), Professor of
Clinical Psychology at Turin University, Turin, Italy

The Cut and the Building of
Psychoanalysis: Volume II
The Cut and the Building of Psychoanalysis: Volume II explores how the unformulated
trauma associated with surgery performed on Emma Eckstein’s genitalia, and the
hallucinations that Eckstein experienced, infl uenced Freud’s self-analysis, oriented
his biological speculations, and signifi cantly infl uenced one of his closest followers,
Sándor Ferenczi. This thought-provoking and incisive work shows how Ferenczi
fi lled the gaps left open in Freud’s system and proved to be a useful example for
examining how such gaps are transmitted from one mind to another.
The fi rst of three parts explores how the mind of the child was viewed prior to
Freud, what events led Freud to formulate and later abandon his theory of actual
trauma, and why Freud turned to the phylogenetic past. Bonomi delves deeper into
Freud’s self-analysis in Part II and reexamines the possible reasons that led Freud
to discard the impact and effects of trauma. The fi nal part explores the interper-
sonal effects of Freud’s self-dissection dream, arguing that Ferenczi managed to
dream aspects of Freud’s self-dissection dream on various occasions, which helped
him to incorporate a part of Freud’s psyche that Freud had himself failed to
integrate.
T his book questions the subject of a woman’s body, using discourse between
Freud and Ferenczi to build a more integrated and accurate narrative of the origins
and theories of psychoanalysis. It will therefore be of interest to psychoanalysts,
psychotherapists, psychologists and social scientists, as well as historians of medi-
cine, science and human rights. Bonomi’s work introduces new arguments to the
contemporary debate surrounding Female Genital Mutilation.
Carlo Bonomi is President of the International Sándor Ferenczi Network and
Chair of the 13th International Sándor Ferenczi Conference (Florence, 2018), a
training and supervising analyst at the Società Italiana di Psicoanalisi e Psicotera-
pia Sándor Ferenczi (SIPeP-SF), Associate Editor of the I nternational Forum of Psy-
choanalysis and on the editorial board of several psychoanalytic journals. He has
taught History of Psychology and Dynamic Psychology at the State University of
Florence and is a former President of the Centre for Historical Studies of Psycho-
analysis and Psychiatry.
T he Relational Perspectives Book Series (RPBS) publishes books that grow out of or
contribute to the relational tradition in contemporary psychoanalysis. The term r ela-
tional psychoanalysis was fi rst used by Greenberg and Mitchell1 to bridge the traditions
of interpersonal relations, as developed within interpersonal psychoanalysis and object
relations, as developed within contemporary British theory. But, under the seminal
work of the late Stephen A. Mitchell, the term r elational psychoanalysis grew and began
to accrue to itself many other infl uences and developments. Various tributaries –
interpersonal psychoanalysis, object relations theory, self psychology, empirical
infancy research, and elements of contemporary Freudian and Kleinian thought –
fl ow into this tradition, which understands relational confi gurations between self and
others, both real and fantasied, as the primary subject of psychoanalytic investigation.
We refer to the relational tradition, rather than to a relational school, to highlight
that we are identifying a trend, a tendency within contemporary psychoanalysis,
not a more formally organized or coherent school or system of beliefs. Our use of
the term r elational signifi es a dimension of theory and practice that has become
salient across the wide spectrum of contemporary psychoanalysis. Now under the
editorial supervision of Lewis Aron and Adrienne Harris, with the assistance of
associate editors Steven Kuchuck and Eyal Rozmarin, the Relational Perspectives
Book Series originated in 1990 under the editorial eye of the late Stephen A.
Mitchell. Mitchell was the most prolifi c and infl uential of the originators of the
relational tradition. Committed to dialogue among psychoanalysts, he abhorred
the authoritarianism that dictated adherence to a rigid set of beliefs or technical
restrictions. He championed open discussion, comparative and integrative
approaches, and promoted new voices across the generations.
Included in the Relational Perspectives Book Series are authors and works that
come from within the relational tradition, extend and develop that tradition, as
well as works that critique relational approaches or compare and contrast it with
alternative points of view. The series includes our most distinguished senior psy-
choanalysts, along with younger contributors who bring fresh vision. A full list of
titles in this series is available at www.routledge.com/series/LEARPBS.
Note
1 Greenberg, J. & Mitchell, S. (1983). O bject relations in psychoanalytic theory. Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press.
The Cut and the Building of
Psychoanalysis: Volume II
Sigmund Freud and Sándor Ferenczi
Carlo Bonomi
First published 2018
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2018 Carlo Bonomi
The right of Carlo Bonomi to be identifi ed as author of this work has been
asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in
any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing
from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or
registered trademarks, and are used only for identifi cation and explanation
without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalog record for this book has been requested
ISBN: 978-1-138-82350-1 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-74203-8 (ebk)
Typeset in Baskerville
by Apex CoVantage, LLC
Contents
List of fi gures ix
Gaps, miracles, and ghosts: Introduction to Volume II 1
PART I
Theory in context 21
1 Infantile amnesia 23
2 Rise and fall of the seduction theory 37
3 Primal fantasies, biotrauma, and shock 55
PART II
The abyss 71
4 The fatal needle 73
5 The blood covenant 86
6 The timeless unconscious: Part I 99
7 The timeless unconscious: Part II 112
8 Necropolis 125
PART III
Transmission 139
9 Mute correspondence: I Catabasis 141
10 Mute correspondence: II Epopteia 150
viii Contents
11 Thalassa: A reparative fantasy 166
12 A blind spot 177
13 Nightmares are real 195
14 Freud and Ferenczi on the Acropolis 212
15 Flight into sanity 231
Bibliographic references 245
Index 267
Figures
6.1 Luca Signorelli (1441–1523): T he Triumph of Pan. Berlin,
Gemaeldegalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin (destroyed
during World War II). (Courtesy of Foto Scala, Firenze) 108
6.2 Sandro Botticelli (1445–1510): T he Birth of Venus. Firenze,
Galleria degli Uffi zi. (Courtesy of Foto Scala, Firenze) 108
7.1 Luca Signorelli (1441–1523): T he Resurrection of the Flesh.
Duomo, Orvieto. (Courtesy of Foto Scala, Firenze/Opera del
Duomo di Orvieto) 113
7.2 Luca Signorelli (1441–1523): T he Preaching and Deeds of the
Antichrist. Duomo, Orvieto. (Courtesy of Foto Scala, Firenze/
Opera del Duomo di Orvieto) 115
7.3 Freud’s original schema of his analysis of the Signorelli slip. 120
8.1 The Etruscan necropolis at the foot of Orvieto, photo circa
1890. (Courtesy of Fratelli Alinari, Firenze) 127
10.1 Ferenczi’s three drawings in his letter to Freud of
December 26, 1912. 161