Concepts of Healing in Early Psychoanalysis

Abstract

This article examines the concepts of healing in the works of three psychoanalysts of different theoretical orientations — Zigmund Freud's, Sándor Ferenczi's and Wilhelm Reich' s, — who  address the question of healing  primarily in terms of resolving clinical difficulties. The key  question of the article: what does psychoanalysis accomplish in relation to the suffering, the patient himself can do nothing about? It substantiates why this question should be considered decisive, preceding psychoanalysis and continuing to exist apart of it. For comparative analysis, the general landscape of Freud's early thought prior to and at the inception of psychoanalysis is provided, where healing is served as a springboard for the establishment of  psychoanalytic theory. The second and third chapters are devoted to Freud's later reflections on the therapeutic potential of psychoanalysis and his conflict with his colleague, analysand, and student, Sándor Ferenczi. The Ferenczi's position is described through the concept of "psychoanalytic soteriology," prompted by the  limit of clinical results and dissatisfaction with the Freud's "therapeutic realism" in his post-war works. To resolve this epistemological issue, the works of Reich, presented as a psychoanalyst and activist who  resolves the conflict between Freud and Ferenczi, but with the consideration of the  challenges of his epistemological, clinical, and political experiments. Analysis  uncovers the underlying polemic that determines the  contemporary engagement with psychoanalytic epistemology in the context of  therapeutic culture's development and a heightened discontent with suffering.