Ferenczi with Lacan: A Missed Encounter

Abstract

Lacan was familiar with the writings of Sándor Ferenczi and commented on them several times, but he did not see himself as part of the lineage of the Hungarian psychoanalytic pioneer. In this article, I summarize the major comments about Ferenczi in Lacan’s seminars, which were mainly disparaging. Although Ferenczi’s independent thinking and his several experiments with analytic technique might have made him a symbolic ancestor,Lacan did not acknowledge the parallels readers have subsequently observed between them. I use the case of G. from Ferenczi’s Clinical Diary (1988) as material to illustrate these affinities and differences, which can be viewed as representing complementary or mutually corrective positions.