22/09/2026
Understanding Sándor Ferenczi
Trauma and the Therapeutic Relationship
From Identification with the Aggressor to Clinical Repair
🔘 4-Hour Psychoanalytic Workshop
What happens when the person upon whom the child depends becomes the source of trauma?
And what happens when the child learns that survival requires adapting to the adult rather than being protected by the adult?
This workshop approaches Sándor Ferenczi through two central dimensions of his work: traumatic adaptation and its repetition within the therapeutic relationship.
Rather than presenting an accumulation of concepts, we will follow one clinical movement:
Trauma → Identification → Repetition → Repair
🟣 MODULE 1 — Trauma, Adaptation & Identification with the Aggressor
How does the child survive the traumatic relationship?
We will explore:
• Ferenczi’s relational understanding of trauma
• Confusion of Tongues
• The language of tenderness vs. the language of passion
• Denial and disbelief
• Identification with the aggressor
• Splitting and traumatic adaptation
• The “wise baby” and premature maturity
• Hypervigilance and compulsive responsibility for others
A central question will guide us:
How do we recognize trauma beyond the traumatic event?
Instead of asking only “What happened?” Ferenczi invites us to ask:
“What did this person have to become in order to survive what happened?”
🟣 MODULE 2 — From Traumatic Repetition to Therapeutic Repair
What happens when this child becomes our patient?
We will explore:
• How traumatic adaptation reappears in therapy
• The patient’s adaptation to the therapist
• Therapeutic authority and neutrality
• Tact and elasticity of technique
• Regression and dependency
• Emotional responsiveness
• Recognition and acknowledgment
• Therapeutic mistakes and repair
• Responsiveness vs. gratification
The central clinical question becomes:
How can the therapist avoid becoming another adult to whom the patient must adapt?
🔘 Skills Acquired
Participants will develop the ability to:
• Recognize trauma beyond the manifest traumatic event
• Identify traumatic adaptation and identification with the aggressor
• Recognize the “wise baby,” hypermaturity, and compulsive caregiving
• Distinguish aggression from defensive identification with aggression
• Recognize when the patient becomes “the adult” in relationships
• Detect when the patient may be adapting to the therapist
• Work more sensitively with dependency and regression
• Recognize when interpretation may become intrusive
• Use tact and therapeutic elasticity while maintaining boundaries
• Think clinically about recognition, acknowledgment, and repair
🔘Target Audience:
• Psychologists and psychotherapists
• Psychiatrists
• Advanced psychology students
• Individuals interested in contemporary psychoanalysis
🔘 Teaching Format
•Psychoanalytic theory
• Clinical cases
• Dream Material
• Clinical discussion
🔘Trainer:
Nadine Ghanimeh
Psychotehrapist
🟣Training Details:
•Duration: 4 hours
• Hybrid training format (in-person and online)
• Participants may attend in person at our center in Badaro or online via ZOOM
• Participants will have access to the recorded sessions and may watch them at any time
• Date: Sunday 11 October from 12 AM to 5 PM
•Training fee: $40, certificate included
For inquiries and registration:
009613638911 / 0096181917028
