On traumatic and therapeutic factors in communication: From Sándor Ferenczi to Charles Rycroft

AbstractDiscussing Charles Rycroft's seminal paper “The nature and function of the analyst's communication to the patient,” presented in 1956 at the Freud Centenary, the author reflects on Rycroft's theory of what constitutes a healthy and a pathological communication and of the therapeutic action of psychoanalysis, linking it with Sandor Ferenczi's theory of trauma.