The 2026 Jeremy D. Safran Memorial Lecture celebrates the legacy of Jeremy Safran, whose wide-ranging intellectual curiosity led to significant contributions in many areas of scholarly inquiry, including the establishment of the Sándor Ferenczi Center at The New School with Dr. Adrienne Harris and Dr. Lewis Aron in 2008.

This year, the conference will host Jay Frankel, PhD. Dr. Frankel will speak about submission and revolt, followed by a discussion with Anthony Bass, PhD. Details of Dr. Frankel's talk are below.  

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Submission and Revolt: Following the Signposts of Ferenczi's Trauma Theory

An abused, frightened child instinctively senses her abuser’s every need and wish, dissociates her own feelings, and "becomes" precisely what the abuser wants her to be, so she can calm him and stay safe. She submits not just in behavior, but inwardly—not least, by blaming herself for what was done her, and believing she’s bad. Ferenczi, who discovered this response a century ago, called it identification with the aggressor. 
 
Ferenczi believed that parents’ denial of their abuse is what is most unbearable for an abused child. When the people she needs most, and turns to for comfort and understanding, repeatedly turn their backs and leave her traumatically alone, dissociation, identification, submission, and shame become entrenched as her default way of being. 
 
Since Ferenczi’s work, it’s become clear that children respond this way to any form of chronic emotional abandonment by narcissistically self-preoccupied parents, even when there’s no flagrant abuse. Adults respond similarly when facing similar threats.
 
Systematic research in clinical and developmental psychology supports and extends these clinical observations. So does ethological research: numerous species of animals, facing certain threats that they can’t avoid, flee, or fight off, will submit in order to stay safe and continue to belong. Submission under such circumstances is deeply rooted in our evolution and our brains.
 
There's also an inevitable counter-reaction to submitting: a self-assertion that can be flagrant or hidden. But such revolts often turn out to be self-defeating.
 
We’ll examine the workings of submission and revolt in some detail. And we’ll look at what these findings suggest for our work with patients, and at the light they shed on the widespread enthusiasm for charismatic leaders.

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

1. To explain how Ferenczi and Severn jointly rehabilitated Freud’s original “seduction theory” to introduce a genuine trauma theory into psychoanalysis.
2. To trace the pre-psychoanalytic origins of trauma theory and its legacy in analysts from Fairbairn to Bromberg.
3. To show the connections between trauma theory and the modifications of therapeutic technique developed by Ferenczi and Severn.
4. To contrast Freud’s authoritarian and Ferenczi’s humanistic conceptions of psychoanalysis.

***

For students and practitioners of all levels 

 
CE Credits (2 hours) available for
New York Psychologists, Social Workers, MHCs, and Licensed Psychoanalysts
APA CE credits also available for Psychologists

Participants must the attend the seminar in its entirety to receive CE credits

 
Zoom information will be sent to participants one day prior to the event.

The 2026 Jeremy D. Safran Memorial Lecture celebrates the legacy of Jeremy Safran, whose wide-ranging intellectual curiosity led to significant contributions in many areas of scholarly inquiry, including the establishment of the Sándor Ferenczi Center at The New School with Dr. Adrienne Harris and Dr. Lewis Aron in 2008.

This year, the conference will host Jay Frankel, PhD. Dr. Frankel will speak about submission and revolt, followed by a discussion with Anthony Bass, PhD. Details of Dr. Frankel's talk are below.  

***

Submission and Revolt: Following the Signposts of Ferenczi's Trauma Theory

An abused, frightened child instinctively senses her abuser’s every need and wish, dissociates her own feelings, and "becomes" precisely what the abuser wants her to be, so she can calm him and stay safe. She submits not just in behavior, but inwardly—not least, by blaming herself for what was done her, and believing she’s bad. Ferenczi, who discovered this response a century ago, called it identification with the aggressor. 
 
Ferenczi believed that parents’ denial of their abuse is what is most unbearable for an abused child. When the people she needs most, and turns to for comfort and understanding, repeatedly turn their backs and leave her traumatically alone, dissociation, identification, submission, and shame become entrenched as her default way of being. 
 
Since Ferenczi’s work, it’s become clear that children respond this way to any form of chronic emotional abandonment by narcissistically self-preoccupied parents, even when there’s no flagrant abuse. Adults respond similarly when facing similar threats.
 
Systematic research in clinical and developmental psychology supports and extends these clinical observations. So does ethological research: numerous species of animals, facing certain threats that they can’t avoid, flee, or fight off, will submit in order to stay safe and continue to belong. Submission under such circumstances is deeply rooted in our evolution and our brains.
 
There's also an inevitable counter-reaction to submitting: a self-assertion that can be flagrant or hidden. But such revolts often turn out to be self-defeating.
 
We’ll examine the workings of submission and revolt in some detail. And we’ll look at what these findings suggest for our work with patients, and at the light they shed on the widespread enthusiasm for charismatic leaders.

***

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

1. To explain how Ferenczi and Severn jointly rehabilitated Freud’s original “seduction theory” to introduce a genuine trauma theory into psychoanalysis.
2. To trace the pre-psychoanalytic origins of trauma theory and its legacy in analysts from Fairbairn to Bromberg.
3. To show the connections between trauma theory and the modifications of therapeutic technique developed by Ferenczi and Severn.
4. To contrast Freud’s authoritarian and Ferenczi’s humanistic conceptions of psychoanalysis.

***

For students and practitioners of all levels 

 
CE Credits (2 hours) available for
New York Psychologists, Social Workers, MHCs, and Licensed Psychoanalysts
APA CE credits also available for Psychologists

Participants must the attend the seminar in its entirety to receive CE credits

 
Zoom information will be sent to participants one day prior to the event.