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A Brief Apocalyptic History of Psychoanalysis: Erasing Trauma

Author(s) : Carlo Bonomi, Author(s) : Peter L. Rudnytsky

Reviews and Endorsements

In this unique book, Bonomi combines a thoughtful textual analysis of the writings of Freud and his contemporaries, up-to-date historical and biographical knowledge, and a study of Ferenczi's journey from being Freud's enthusiastic follower towards crystalizing a daring new model, surpassing Freud's blind spots. This creative original work helps the reader to better comprehend major trends in present psychoanalytic practice, emphasizing trauma and splitting, the crucial value of empathy and lived experience, and the unavoidable immersion of therapists in the transference – countertransference matrix.
Prof. Emanuel Berman, Israel Psychoanalytic Society, Professor Emeritus at the University of Haifa

Carlo Bonomi, a scholar of the Ferenczi Renaissance, discloses a striking perspective on the foundation and transmission of psychoanalysis. The discovery that Freud didn’t categorize the circumcision of a girl as a genital mutilation and a relational trauma is indeed a shock. Yet, this unthought-of trauma didn’t get lost because, in the first analytic treatment Freud experienced it on his own body, later becoming the secret source of his theory of castration anxiety. This paradox is the key to this Brief Apocalyptic History of Psychoanalysis, in which many contradictions of the history of our discipline find their place within a consistent narration based on Ferenczi’s theory of trauma as a split between intellect and emotions.
Prof. Clara Mucci, Società di Psicoanalisi e Psicoterapia Sándor Ferenczi, and Professor for Dynamic Psychology at the Università degli Studi of Bergamo

In this new book Carlo Bonomi bridges the gap between Freud’s foundation of psychoanalysis and contemporary theories and methods, continuing his journey into the origins of psychoanalysis by linking Freud’s emotional and intellectual reaction to Emma Eckstein’s circumcision to his neglect of the feminine. Bonomi shows how Freud’s amputated legacy was unconsciously transmitted to his closest followers, and how Sándor Ferenczi　in particular would help to heal this wounded body by restoring the limbs of repetition, countertransference, vulnerability, and the feminine.
Prof. Franco Borgogno, Società Psicoanalitica Italiana and 2010 recipient of the Mary Sigourney Award

Physicians’ interest in human sexual organs came with educational intent, a hidden story in the history of psychoanalysis. Freud, fallen into this sinister tradition, panicked – and concealed that his friend Fliess had operated on the patient known as "Irma" in The Interpretation of Dreams. She almost died. It’s a detective novel, but more a clarification of a traumatic event—a great contribution! With strong reference to Ferenczi, the author cures psychoanalysis from the unthought which had turned into the unthinkable. A "must read" for clinicians and historians.
Prof. Michael B. Buchholz, International Psychoanalytic University, Berlin

In line with his earlier work, Carlo Bonomi hypothesizes, with magnificent erudition, that Freud invented psychoanalysis as a result of an unacknowledged and repressed trauma: that of the circumcision undergone in childhood by one of his female patients. And it is from this amputated and catastrophic heritage that Ferenczi, in his great lucidity, was able to lay the basis for a refoundation of psychoanalytic doctrine. This book, of burning topicality, takes into account the question of the body, often neglected by psychoanalysts, and that of Freud's intimate life, which is essential for contemporary historiography.
Elisabeth Roudinesco, President of the Société internationale d’histoire de la psychiatrie et de la psychanalyse, Co-founder of the Institut histoire et Lumières de la pensée