Ferenczi to Rank to Rogers:
Earlier in my research I traced the conceptual links from psychoanalysis to humanistism. I have found evidence that Ferenczi's theories and techniques foreshadowed the later development of humanistic psychology. Ferenczi is the ghost in the person-centered approach.
How? Let me present, Otto Rank, once Ferenczi's closest collaborator and BFF. When Rank and Freud broke (presaged by Freud's former admiration of Rank--why can't there be a dozen like he? Only, of course, Rank got a life. And a point of view). Freud ordered Ferenczi to break with him then. And he did.
Rank went further than Ferenczi--he disengaged psychotherapy from the medical model from which it was conceived. There were no cures. Rank may have preceded Ferenczi in detailing the authority issues between the patient and the psychoanalyst, he was the first to emphasis the importance of the mother-child relationship and de-emphasize the Oedipus complex, and he raised the supine patient to seated, thus instituting a face-to-face encounter. Rankian therapy didn't seek to make the unconscious conscious but to help a patient learn coping skills in preparation from a life apart from the therapist. The neurotic was an artist, only the latter discharges creativity; the former defenses. Therapy needed to focus on here and now. Resistance is health.
And Rogers knew Rank. Rogers gave direct credit for his approach to Rank.
Obviously, Rogers brought forth many Midwestern influences and Protestantism. Training at that time was Freudian in focus and Rogers found it lacking. He learned of Rank and felt validated by Rank's relational approach.
Rogerian philosophy of an empathic, emotional, therapeutic bond is a major point of communion between Ferenczi and Rogers. However, there are still differences. Ferenczi always kept an authority/underling component in his descriptions of therapy (although who was up and who was down varied, I suppose). Rogers always emphasized an adult-adult encounter. The client knows where the pain is, what the problem is, and what experiences are latent. Rogers sincerely and deeply believed in the equality between the clioent and therapist.
