Clara M. Thompson’s Early Years and Professional Awakening: An American Psychoanalyst (1893-1933) and Clara M. Thompson’s Professional Evolution and Legacy: An American Psychoanalyst (1933-1958)

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Notes

1 There has been a great deal of speculation as to both Thompson’s and Sullivan’s sexuality. After conducting an interview with Thompson’s close friend, Zeborah Schachtel, who confirmed Thompson’s bisexuality, D’Ercole concludes that Thompson was likely bisexual. See D’Ercole, 2023a, p. 23. Rumors about Sullivan’s homosexuality have long been circulated, fueled by the fact that Sullivan lived for twenty-two years with a man he often referred to as his foster son, but who many in Sullivan’s circle regarded as his lover. Barton Evans, who explores the topic in his forthcoming revised edition of Harry Stack Sullivan: Interpersonal Theory and Therapy, told me that the picture is probably more complex, as his research revealed that Sullivan had sexual relations with men and women (Barton Evans, personal communication, June 8, 2023).

2 Thompson, C. (2017). The history of the William Alanson White Institute. Contemp. Psychoanal., 53:1, p. 19.

3 Dupont, J., ed. (1988). The Clinical Diary of Sándor Ferenczi. Harvard Univ. Press; Rachman, A. W. (1997). Sándor Ferenczi: The Psychoanalyst of Tender and Passion. Latham, MD: Jason Aronson; Harris, A. & Kuchuck, S., eds. (2015). The Legacy of Sándor Ferenczi: From Ghost to Ancestor. New York/London: Routledge.

4 See p. 3 in The Clinical Diary where Judith Dupont, the editor, writes: “As a child, Dm. [i.e., Clara Thompson] had been grossly abused sexually by her father, who was out of control; later, obviously because of the father’s bad conscious and social anxiety, he reviled her, so to speak. The daughter had to take revenge on her father indirectly, by failing in her own life.”

5 D’Ercole makes the argument that it is more likely that Ferenczi conflated elements of Thompson’s biography with that of his other famous patient, Elizabeth Severn, identified in the Diary as “R. N.” This assertion seems highly plausible, in part because it is widely known that Severn was sexually abused by her own father, as documented in Rachman, A. W. (2017). Elizabeth Severn: The “Evil Genius” of Psychoanalysis. New York/London: Routledge.

6 Thompson, C. (1964). Ferenczi’s relaxation method. In Interpersonal Psychoanalysis: The Selected Papers of Clara M. Thompson, ed. M. R. Green. New York: Basic Books, pp. 67-68.

7 See, for example, pp. 45 and 176 in Jones, E. (1957). The Life and Work of Sigmund Freud. Vol. 3. The Last Phase (1919-1939). New York: Basic Books.

8 See Hale, N. (1995). The Rise and Crisis of Psychoanalysis in the United States: Freud and the Americans, 1917-1985. Oxford, UK: Oxford Univ. Press. Note that it was only in 2014 that the WAWI was invited to become an “approved” Institute member by the American Psychoanalytic Association, almost seventy years after it was originally founded.

9 Fromm, E. (1964). Forward. In M. R. Green, ed. Interpersonal Psychoanalysis: The Selected Papers of Clara M. Thompson. New York: Basic Books, p. vi.

10 Fromm, 1964, p. vi.

11 Thompson. C. (1943). “Penis Envy in Women.” In M. R. Green, ed. Interpersonal Psychoanalysis: The Selected Papers of Clara M. Thompson. New York: Basic Books, p. 243.

12 Thompson, (1943), p. 244.

13 Thompson, C. (1950). Introduction. In The Selected Papers of Sándor Ferenczi, Sex in Psychoanalysis (Vol.1). New York: Basic Books.

14 Waugaman, R. M. (2016). Further Notes on Choosing an Analyst. Psychiatry, 79:13-8.