The Other Side of the Story: Severn on Ferenczi and Mutual Analysis

  • This chapter presents the discovery that Elizabeth Severn’s 1933 book, The Discovery of the Self, contains disguised case histories of both herself and Ferenczi, and thereby constitutes a companion volume to Ferenczi’s Clinical Diary. From having been known primarily as >R.N.,< the most important patient in the Diary, Severn emerges as a subject and original contributor to psychoanalysis in her own right. Severn’s reception of Ferenczi’s legacy is compared to that of two of his other American patients, Izette de Forest and Clara Thompson, the latter of whom envied Severn for her closeness to Ferenczi. Multiple correspondences between the accounts of Ferenczi and Severn of their mutual analysis, as well as of their histories, are set forth. The significance of Strindberg’s play, The Father, for Ferenczi’s transference to Severn is examined. Ferenczi and Severn are shown to have been two deeply traumatized individuals who healed themselves by finding their spiritual counterparts in each other.

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Metadaten
Author:Peter L. Rudnytsky
Parent Title (English):P. Rudnytsky: Formulated Experiences. Hidden Realities and Emergent Meanings from Shakespeare to Fromm, London and New York (Routledge) 2019, pp. 117-136.
Document Type:Articles
Language:English
Year of first Publication:2019
Release Date:2020/11/03
Format:to purchase via publisher
IdNo:Rudnytsky_P_L_2019e
Writings about Erich Fromm (Secondary Literature):Articles / Artikel
Erich Fromm's Library and Erich Fromm Archive:Articles / Artikel
International Erich Fromm Society's Writings:Articles / Artikel
Licence (German):
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