The Sandor Ferenczi Center at The New School for Social Research

09/17/2026

"...we must connect directly with Freud's last technical work ("Remembering, Repeating, and Working through," 1914) in which a different degree of importance is attached to the three factors mentioned in the title, inasmuch as remembering is treated as the actual aim of psycho-analytic work, whereas the desire to repeat instead of remembering, is regarded as a symptom of resistance and is therefore recommended to be avoided. From the standpoint of the compulsion to repeat, it is, however, NOT ONLY ABSOLUTELY UNAVOIDABLE, that the patient should, during the cure, repeat a large part of his process of development, but also experience has shown, it is a matter of just those portions which cannot be really experienced from memory, so that there is NO OTHER WAY OPEN TO THE PATIENT than that of repeating, as well as NO OTHER MEANS for the analyst to seize the essential unconscious material. It is now a question of understanding this form of communication, the so-called language of gesture, as Ferenczi has called it, and of explaining this to the patient." (Ferenczi & Rank, 1925, The Development of Psycho-Analysis)

09/14/2026

"We talk a good deal in analysis of regressions into the infantile, but we do not really believe to what great extent we are right; we talk a lot about the splitting of the personality, but do not seem sufficiently to appreciate the depth of these splits." - Confusion of Tongues Between Adults and the Child (first delivered as a paper read at the Twelfth International Psycho-Analytical Congress, Wiesbaden, September 1932)

06/02/2026

24 April 1932

Why Dm.'s smell should be experienced as the smell of a co**se is a problem in itself. Preliminary attempt at a solution: whenever an emotional reaction is suppressed, interrupted, or repressed, something is actually destroyed in us. The annihilated part of the person falls into a state of decay and decomposes. Should the entire person be prevented from acting, then generalized decomposition ensues, that is to say, death. A link here with the assertion of so many neurotics, in states of trace of dream states, that a greater or lesser part of them is dead, or killed, and is dragged around as a lifeless, that is, nonfunctioning burden. The content of this bundle of repression is in a permanent state of agony, that is, decomposition.

05/12/2026

Excerpts from the Clinical Diary:

8 August 1932

"I do not know of any analyst whose analysis I could declare, theoretically, as concluded (least of all my own). Thus we have, in every single analysis, quite enough to learn about ourselves."

05/06/2026

Clips from the Clinical Diary, a fascinating germ for ideas developed by Winnicott and later Davies... the necessity of allowing oneself to be the bad object and admitting participation in the patient's wounding.

8 March 1932

"Apparently I do not like being continually accused of being a murderer. In case B., I have finally come to realize that it is an unavoidable task for the analyst: although he may behave as he will, he may take kindness and relaxation as far as he possibly can, the time will come when he will have to repeat with his very own hands the act of murder previously perpetrated against the patient. In contrast to the original murder, however, he is not allowed to deny his guilt; analytic guilt consists of the doctor not being able to offer full maternal care, goodness, self-sacrifice; and consequently he again exposes the people under his care, who just barely managed to save themselves before, to the same danger, by not providing adequate help. After we have allowed the patients to deliver their judgment, quite exhaustively, against us and the other murderers, they raise the question in themselves: what would I have to say in reply? In my answer I openly admitted the inadequacy of my assistance, not making a secret of my own painful feelings on the subject...But, I said, there is nevertheless a difference between our honesty and the hypocritical silence of parents. This and our goodwill must be counted in our favor. This is why I do not give up hope and why I count on the return of trust in spite of the disillusionment."

05/05/2026

Clips from the Clinical Diary:

4 August 1932: “…[T]he antitraumatic in Freud is a protective device against insight into his own weakness. …In his conduct, Freud plays only the role of the castrating god, he wants to ignore the traumatic moment of his own castration in childhood; he is the only one who does not have to be analyzed.”

03/21/2023

The New School’s students, alums, and faculty engage in groundbreaking scholarly research, creative practice, and scholarship that has a global and social impact. Our 34 academic centers and institutes defy disciplinary boundaries to address the world’s most pressing problems.

03/21/2023

Register NOW for April 2, 2023 Virtual conference honoring the legacy of Ferenczi Center co-founder Jeremy D. Safran. Panels on pedagogy, psychotherapy integration, and spiritual concepts and psychoanalysis. We would love for you to join us! Click below for registration.

https://blogs.newschool.edu/sandor-ferenczi-center/2023/02/the-jeremy-d-safran-memorial-conference/?fbclid=IwAR3P1hHAe4CPUgRavPyDXsTVNqkyqVerj2KGinCOn2xqw5EwCFmxrSue7Y4

The New School’s students, alums, and faculty engage in groundbreaking scholarly research, creative practice, and scholarship that has a global and social impact. Our 34 academic centers and institutes defy disciplinary boundaries to address the world’s most pressing problems.

03/09/2023

https://blogs.newschool.edu/sandor-ferenczi-center/2023/02/the-jeremy-d-safran-memorial-conference/

JOIN US TO HONOR THE LEGACY OF FERENCZI CENTER CO-FOUNDER JEREMY D. SAFRAN IN A VIRTUAL CONFERENCE ON APRIL 2 FEATURING PANELS DEVELOPING HIS SIGNIFICANT CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE FIELD, INCLUDING PEDAGOGY, PSYCHOTHERAPY INTEGRATION, AND BUDDHISM, JUDAISM, AND PSYCHOANALYSIS. REGISTER IN THE LINK BELOW!

The New School’s students, alums, and faculty engage in groundbreaking scholarly research, creative practice, and scholarship that has a global and social impact. Our 34 academic centers and institutes defy disciplinary boundaries to address the world’s most pressing problems.

06/10/2019

Ghosts, Trauma and Travel Fever in Psychoanalysis
Trauma can be part of our inheritance: read an excerpt from Ghosts in the Consulting Room: Echoes of Trauma in Psychoanalysis about working with the transgenerational transmission of emotion.

Ghosts in the Consulting Room: Echoes of Trauma in Psychoanalysis, published by the Relational Perspectives Book Series, delves into the overwhelming feelings related to mourning. Bringing together a collection of clinical and theoretical papers, it features accounts of the unpredictable effects of