The Clinical Diary of Sándor Ferenczi

“Compelling… Ferenczi was an innovator, an experimenter, someone who was always trying new approaches to the treatment of mental illness, even when his unorthodox techniques placed him in opposition to his analyst and mentor, Sigmund Freud.”—Stuart Schneiderman, The New York Times Book Review

“Allows the public interested in such matters to assess, far better than before, the range of [Ferenczi’s] professional gifts and the depth of his psychological vulnerability… A welcome addition to the growing number of significant texts illuminating the history of psychoanalysis.”—Peter Gay, London Review of Books

“The Diary is the work of a sane mind in full possession of its powers and gives us insight into the day-to-day thoughts of a practitioner whose status as a creative innovator is probably unsurpassed since Freud. It is a very moving book. One is continually amazed by the courage of the man.”—Peter Lomas, The Times Literary Supplement

“Freud criticised his one-time favourite son for advocating the ‘kissing technique’; Ferenczi believed that ‘only sympathy heals’. This is the 1932 record of his analyses. His work was faltering, doubting, and quite possibly, healing.”—David Flusfeder, The Week