Searching for a Sensitive Way of Working Through*

This work intends to present aspects of clinical work in which the Ferenczian proposition of neo-catharsis, as re-emergence of repressed affective experience in the transference and countertransference presents itself as a challenge to the analyst, since a standard, classical technical approach results in repetition of past trauma with the analyst as perpetrator. A deviation from standard technique—free association, the principle of abstinence in transference, and interpretation—involving empathic listening, and affective sharing contains the patient’s suffering. The re-emergence of suffering and terror, which represents the repressed affect associated with the traumatic past, but with a sympathetic and sensitive analyst, sharing their experience, is crucial in working through and healing.     

Social Trauma and Testimony: A Reading of Maryan S. Maryan’s Notebooks Inspired by Sándor Ferenczi

The purpose of this paper is to present the relational dimension of trauma according to Sándor Ferenczi, illustrating it by using the testimonial material produced during the analysis of Maryan S. Maryan, a visual artist, survivor of Auschwitz. Furthermore, a few formulations are proposed on being witness to traumatic experiences in psychoanalytic practice, as well as what can be considered as ethics and politics in psychoanalysis when facing situations of social trauma and violence.