In this reading and clinical seminar, we will consider Sandor Ferenczi's groundbreaking work on the role of countertransference in psychotherapy and its uses in the therapeutic situation. The seminar will combine readings by Ferenczi and his contemporaries –– along with contemporary writers –– on trauma, dissociation and multiplicity who have extended Ferenczi’s findings. 

Ferenczi's Clinical Diary will serve as our anchoring text and we will read it in its entirety, along with other works by Ferenczi, Groddeck, Severn, Bromberg, Davies, Winnicott, and Balint. We will emphasize uses of the therapist's self in light of contemporary understandings of the transference/countertransference field, with special reference to Ferenczi’s work on mutuality and his experiments in mutual analysis. 

We will also take up the therapist's conscious and unconscious uses of themselves in light of our understanding and experience of countertransference, unconscious communication between therapist and patient, enactment, and a variety of other clinical therapeutic phenomena as they emerge in our discussions.

This is an ongoing seminar, in its third year, but new members are welcome to join and will have a chance to read the Clinical Diary in depth along with those who have studied the text before.

CE Credits (16.5 hours) available New York Psychologists, Psychoanalysts,  Social Workers, and MHCs; APA CE credits also available for Psychologists

Participants must attend all 10 seminar meetings in their entirety to receive CE credits. This is a strict rule from the APA/NYS Office of Professions. No exceptions can be made and attendance will be taken.

Meetings will take place from 3:00 to 4:40 PM Eastern Time on the following Fridays: 

September 19, 2025

October 17, 2025

November 14, 2025

December 19, 2025

January 16, 2026

February 20, 2026

March 20, 2026

April 17, 2026

May 15, 2026

June 12, 2026

Participants will receive Zoom details before the date of the first seminar meeting.

Learning Objectives
At the end of the workshop, participants will be able to:

1. Describe why Ferenczi’s foundational paper “The Confusion of Tongues” is regarded as the first “relational paper” in psychoanalysis, anticipating the “relational turn” by some fifty years.
2. Identify and describe Ferenczi’s contribution to the uses of countertransference in psychoanalytic psychotherapy.
3. Describe and identify Ferenczi’s early contribution to trauma work and its influence on contemporary approaches to traumatology.
4. Explain Ferenczi’s early experiments with mutuality as a fundamental dimension of psychoanalytic work and its foundational contribution to the development of contemporary relational work.
5. Describe and identify Ferenczi’s influence on British Independent School psychoanalysis and Kleinian psychoanalysis.
6. Identify the influence of Ferenczi’s experiments in elasticity of technique on intersubjective and relational psychoanalytic perspectives on the frame.
7. Describe and compare differences between Freud and Ferenczi in their understanding of the role of the analyst’s unconscious in regard to psychoanalytic technique.
8. Explain the role and uses of regression in psychoanalysis.
9. Identify and list the ways in which Ferenczi’s late work has exercised a central role in the development of relational and intersubjective theory and technique of psychoanalysis.
10. Identify Ferenczi’s influence on contemporary views of dissociation and multiplicity.
11. Describe how Ferenczi’s work contributed to an understanding of the therapeutic relationship from a relational point of view.
12. Describe the impact of Ferenczi’s work on our understanding of unconscious communication and its relevance to psychoanalytic technique.
13. Describe how Ferenczi’s work contributed to our understanding of the role of self-disclosure in psychoanalytic technique.

Participants who wish to receive CE credits must attend each seminar session in its entirety; attendance will be recorded to track each participant’s entry and exit time.

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Participants with physical or sensory disabilities are encouraged to contact the CE committee members at least 2 weeks in advance of the event to plan for appropriate accommodations. Please contact us via phone or email:

Nichelle Horlacher (Department Secretary) T 212.229.5727 x3223
SteeleM@newschool.edu (Miriam Steele, Ph.D.)
SteeleH@newschool.edu (Howard Steele, Ph.D.)
NSSRFerencziCenter@gmail.com (Netta Keesom, Student Coordinator for the Sándor Ferenczi Center)

Participants may also contact CE committee members with any concerns. You may also share concerns when you receive your evaluation form after the event.

Tickets may be refunded up to 24 hours prior to the start of the event. Please email NSSRFerencziCenter@gmail.com to cancel your ticket and request a refund.

The New School for Social Research, Department of Psychology SW CPE is recognized by the New York State Education Department’s State Board for Social Work as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed social workers #0199.

The New School for Social Research, Department of Psychology is recognized by the New York State Education Department's State Board for Mental Health Practitioners as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed mental health counselors. #MHC-0120.

The New School of Social Research, Department of Psychology is recognized by the New York State Education Department’s State Board for Psychology as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed psychologists #PSY-0146.

The New School of Social Research, Department of Psychology is recognized by the New York State Education Department’s State Board for Mental Health Practitioners as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed psychoanalysts #P-0070.

The New School for Social Research, Department of Psychology is approved by

the American Psychological Association to sponsor continuing education for psychologists.

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The New School for Social Research Clinical Psychology Department maintains responsibility for this program and its content.

The sponsors of this event report no conflicts of interest or commercial support.

Registered attendees will receive the Zoom link via email.