1927–2017: Ferenczi and the interpersonal school of psychoanalysis, the debate continues

Abstract This paper focuses on how sometimes it is possible to encounter nodal concepts that seem to lead to a perceptible consistency of the intertwining of some “fil rouge” in the theories and sensibilities of psychoanalysts who are otherwise very different from each other. Ninety years after the last conferences held by Ferenczi in America, it emerges that Ferenczi remains a point of reference for numerous authors and continues to influence many of the theories proposed. In particular, the concept of agency, as theorized by Jonathan Slavin, would seem capable of organizing a series of observations in analytic practice within a coherent theoretical framework, while remaining unsaturated enough to allow further reflections and connections with the theories of other scholars, among which that of Edgar Levenson appears significant. Levenson and Slavin, in the wake of Ferenczi, highlight how the analyst must avoid both the risk of an aseptic neutrality and the risk of collusion with their own narcissistic desire at the expense of the desire of others, since the realization of these risks would hinder the patient from becoming an agent of themself.