Ferenczi has been defi ned as the author of a "clinical revolution" because many paradigms in his thinking differ considerably from the Freudian ones. Technique is generally considered to be Ferenczi's main concern. However, a wholly new metapsychology may be discerned in his writings. In this article the author addresses three Ferenczian paradigms. He establishes connection between welcome at birth, trauma, and introjection. This pathway refl ects a view of development essentially different from the Freudian one, starting from the innate need for a primary loving relationship, then focusing on the impact of trauma and identifi cation with the aggressor. Finally, the relational paradigm is viewed as the foundation of the therapeutic relationship.

As we know, Sándor Ferenczi compared the analytic and adoptive relationships as the psychoanalyst exercises a parental role to some extent. The author notes that a commonality between the adoptive relationship and the analytic one is that if the parental couple is burdened with painful counter-transferential experiences and feelings that have not been worked through, these can pose a danger for the strength of the newly developing parental relationship. In the analytic situation the analyst’s position implies the risk of conflict with the parental internal objects resulting from the primary introjections, especially if the original environment was abusive or severely neglectful. Similarly, the adoptive family is often burdened with revengeful and competitive aggressiveness of their own introjected parental objects, having as a main task to keep unified the pre-adoptive autobiographical memories that were dissociated and interrupted. In such cases it is very important to give the adoptive parents help so as to cope with their difficult “countertransference,” supporting them to reduce their sense of guilt and unsuitability to nurse their children, especially if the adoptive parents feel guilty because of their own infertility. In this paper the author describes two cases concerning both situations, emphasising the clinical risks and the evolutionary potentialities.

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Après la mort de Freud, beaucoup d’études psychanalytiques ont démontré une étroite relation entre les méthodes pédagogiques de Moritz Schreber, père de l’auteur des Mémoires d’un névropathe , et les idées délirantes de son fils, dont l’interprétation de Freud est notoire. Personne ne sait ce que Ferenczi, à l’époque de l’« incident de Palerme » (1910), aurait pu dire au sujet du cas Schreber, car Freud a refusé sa collaboration pour écrire l’essai. Après cet épisode, une longue période d’humble soumission au maître se dessinera pour Ferenczi. Cette période sera aussi accompagnée par une élaboration théorique l’amenant, à la fin de sa vie, à concevoir le mécanisme de l’intropression, qui aurait pu être employé pour comprendre la relation entre persécution réelle et introjection de l’agresseur dans la première enfance de Schreber. Dans cet article, nous effectuons une enquête suivant les intuitions scientifiques, les angoisses, et les préoccupations des protagonistes de l’événement palermitain, comparant entre eux plusieurs écrits scientifiques et épistolaires des protagonistes et de leurs collègues, et illustrant par la description d’un cas clinique une sorte de « Schreber contemporain ».

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