Sándor Ferenczi's Psychoanalytic Ground-Breaking Contributions to the Study of Trauma, Therapeutic Technique and Clinical Relationship.

Sándor Ferenczi's contribution recognizes the relevant interpersonal aspects and intersubjective dialogue as central to psychoanalytic theory and clinical practice. Through his theoretical, clinical and technical studies, he has developed numerous notions in relation to trauma, the effects of its disavowal and its impact exceeding the victim's capacity for understanding and symbolization. After about 50 years of forced oblivion, Ferenczi's thought has regained full recognition since 1990s among the wider psychoanalytic and clinical community in general. Authors analyze Ferenczi's fundamental intuitions on the "confusion of tongues" and trauma, dissociative, and defensive processes, understood as a dysfunctional interpersonal process that undermines the capacity to make sense of experience. Consequently, healing can only occur through new and functional relational experiences within a sincere and affective therapeutic relationship. The latter, moreover, is seen as an exercise in reflective thinking in the form of participatory dialogue that helps the patient to develop, trust, reflective capacity and to integrate his personality.