Regression and the Maternal in the History of Psychoanalysis, 1900–1957

Abstract

This paper examines the history of the concept of ‘regression’ as it was perceived by Sandor Ferenczi and some of his followers in the first half of the twentieth century. The first part provides a short history of the notion of ‘regression’ from the late nineteenth century to Ferenczi's work in the 1920s and 1930s. The second and third parts of the paper focus on two other thinkers on regression, who worked in Britain, under the influence of the Ferenczian paradigm – the interwar Scottish psychiatrist, Ian D. Suttie; and the British-Hungarian psychoanalyst, and Ferenczi's most important pupil, Michael Balint. Rather than a descriptive term which comes to designate a pathological mental stage, Ferenczi understood ‘regression’ as a much more literal phenomenon. For him, the mental desire to go backwards in time is a universal one, and a consequence of an inevitable traumatic separation from the mother in early childhood, which has some deep personal and cultural implications. The paper aims to show some close affinities between the preoccupation of some psychoanalysts with ‘regression’, and the growing interest in social and cultural aspects of ‘motherhood’ and ‘the maternal role’ in mid-twentieth-century British society.

Hochschuldidaktische Betrachtungen differenzreflexiver Lehrer innenbildung

“…Während Ferenczi mit seinen Überlegungen am Ende der Zwanziger-Jahre noch den "Vater" der psychoanalytischen "Urhorde" zu erzürnen vermochte, wurden Techniken, die auf eine "Ausgleichung" der "Emotionen" zielten, nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg ganz und gar salonfähig und in den Siebziger-Jahren weit über die sich immer stärker auflösende Psychoanalyse hinaus populär (vgl. Bar-Haim 2014, Koch 2017, Lunbeck 2011, wie etwa der internationale Erfolg der Urschrei-Therapie zeigte: "Neurose ist eine Krankheit des Gefühls. Ihr Kernpunkt ist die Unterdrückung des Gefühls" (Janov 1970(Janov /1974.…”

Sandor Ferenczi – Ernest Jones: letters 1911–1933

“…Indeed, as this volume explores, Ferenczi was a highly influential figure in the early days of the British psychoanalytical movement. As so many of the London society had been trained in Budapest, it is easier to understand now why the maternaloriented approach of Ferenczi, not only preceded the works of Klein, Winnicott, Bowlby, andneedless to say -Balint, but also served as great inspiration for all of them (Bar-Haim, 2014;Rudnytsky, 2002;Szekacs-Weisz & Keve, 2012). Part of the reason, however, that the affinities between these two schools were acknowledged only recently was because of the long marginalisation of Ferenczi in the history of psychoanalysis.…”

Proving nothing and illustrating much: The case of Michael Balint

“…For the history of British psychoanalysis in the mid-twentiethcentury, seeShapira, 2013; on the debate between Anna Freud and Klein see,Steiner and Pearl, 1991;Shapira, 2017;Bar-Haim, 2017. On the Ferenczian tradition and its impact on British psychoanalysis seeBar-Haim, 2014.…”