Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jun 12, 2026

Assessing the Coherence of Parents' Short Narratives Regarding their Child Using the Five-Minute Speech Sample Procedure
Published on: September 19, 2019
"Ablation of the parental images": a secret core in Charles Rycroft's psychoanalytic thought
Franco Borgogno1, Gabriele Cassullo
1Clinical Psychology at University of Turin, Italy. borgogno@psych.unito.it
Abstract:
This article arises from the need to "present" (that is, to read again in a "present and actual" light) the paper, "Why Analysts Need Their Patients' Transferences" by Charles Rycroft (which first appeared in 1993 and is re-published in this Special Issue), and is therefore strictly connected to the ideas the latter contains. The authors, on the one hand, outline the stages of the journey that took Rycroft to elaborate the concept of "ablation of the parental images", and on the other, retrace his personal "analytic genealogy" and discover a "missing forefather", Sándor Ferenczi, who has represented for a long time a direct "missing link" in the history of psychoanalysis.
Related Concept Videos
Freud's Psychoanalytic Theory
Freud's concept of psychic determinism asserts that...
Freudian Psychology
Psychodynamic Therapy
Psychosexual Theory of Development
The Five Stages of Psychosexual Development
Freud's psychosexual...
Psychodynamic Perspectives on Personality
Psychodynamic theorists argue that unconscious...
Psychotherapy
