Giselle's father arranged the marriage between Giselle and Palos. The father was a wealthy merchant. Hungarian Jews typically sought to arrange prestigious marriages for their offspring, and Palos, being a physician, held a prestigious occupation. Giselle was unhappy and some believe started having affairs from the beginning. Within a few years, she had Elma, the first of her daughters, then Magda, her younger.
It is probable that Giselle and Sandor started their love affair around 1900. They may have met at his mother's bookstore. Sandor had an ambivalent relationship with his mother which he never resolved. He was never her favorite and believed she found him too needy and demanding. It is interesting, is it not, that his first grand love affair was with a female who also could not give herself completely?
Sandor arranged an introduction through a mutual physician friend to Freud and started his second grand love affair with Freud around 1908, shortly after he published "The effect on women of premature ejaculation in men." Some believe the case study in this paper is an attempt by Ferenczi to write about his problems with Giselle via the 3rd person. Freud also could not give him the maternal love he sought.
Elma's fiance committed suicide around 1912 and Giselle asked Sandor to take her on in psychoanalysis.
After their first session, as Elma wrote in a letter to Michael Balint, Sandor sat next to her on the couch and embraced her, asking if she could love him in return. She was astonished and replied "Yes," though she, in reality, was more surprised than in love. They announced their engagement to Giselle, who accepted this. After all, when the "two people whom you love most in the world," are in love, what else can you do?
The engagement persisted for several weeks before Elma broke it. The engagement, that is, not Ferenczi's needy penis. She was sent off to Freud for further psychoanalysis, who diagnosed her as "schizophrenic." Schizophrenic was a relatively new diagnosis and did not have the current criteria attached to it. Nonetheless, it was still a hateful, weaponized use of diagnosis, even for Freud.
After Elma broke off the engagement, Giselle and Sandor renewed their love affair. Magda married Sandor's younger brother. Both of them were against the marriage of Gisellle and Sandor. Imagine the complicated terms. Magda is Sandor's daughter-in-law and sister-in-law. His brother remains his brother as well as his son-in-law. Phew.
I believe Giselle and Geza lived apart for the last few years of their marriage. Geza refused to give Giselle a divorce. After World War I, divorce laws loosened and Giselle and Sandor went to take out a marriage license. The hour they signed their license, Geza died of a heart attack.
Sandor was always ambivalent about Giselle. After Elma broke off the engagement, after he married Giselle, he continued to mourn what could have been with Elma. He blamed Freud for thwarting his love life. He believed Elma could bear him the children he wanted, while Giselle's time for child-bearing was past. Freud was extremely partisan, scheming with Giselle to make it legal, siding with Giselle against Sandor, and telling Sandor that she was the right love choice for him. Well, maybe for Freud. But not for Sandor, who continued to pine for Elma (whom he believed would give him the children for whom he so longed).
Perhaps it wouldn't have been so anyway. Elma married John Laurvik in 1915. Elma spoke several languages and was active in the art scene. While translating at an art show, she married Laurvik. She never divorced him but they lived apart. What a recapitulation of her mother's love life--after all, Geza and Giselle had long lived apart. Talk about using your parent's as a model of relatedness. No word on how her sister and brother-in-law arranged their marital relationship. She returned to Hungary and apparently lived with her mother. During WWII, she served as a translator for the Red Cross and they relocated her, Giselle, and Magda to safety in Switzerland. After the death of Giselle, she and Magda moved to New York City and shared an apartment on E.82 and Madison. Both lived in genteel poverty. Neither she nor Magda had children. While Laurvik was not the right choice for her (Peer Gynt, anyone, whatever that means), she does not seem to have pined for Sandor the way he did for her. As I said, when he got up next to her on the couch after her initial session, her response seems more surprised than sincere. Her last fiance suicided. Mother pushes her onto Sandor's couch, whom she has known since she was a little girl. After a gut-wrenching session, he professes his love for her. What else can a well-brought up confused teenager do but say yes, and "hope it was so."
I find Sandor Ferenczi's triangulated relationships of interest.
Think of it: Sandor, Giselle, Geza. Sandor, Elma, Giselle. Sandor, Elma, Freud. Sandor, Giselle, Freud.
Professionally, his relationships were also triangulated: First, he had an intense, professional relationship with Otto Rank. So it was Ferenczi, Rank, and Freud. They collaborated on techniques and papers. They wrote a monograph together in 1926. Soon thereafter, Freud became displeased with Ranks birth trauma theory, as it threatened to displace Freud's Oedipus. So, Ferenczi was ordered to drop Rank. Which he did. Later on, when disappointed with Freud, he started a new, non-sexual relationship with Groddeck. So it was Ferenczi, Groddeck, and Freud.
Ferenczi just couldn't be alone with anyone.
