Edited by
Antal Bókay
Ferenc Erõs (editor-in-chief)
Kinga Göncz
György Hidas
Judit Mészáros
Júlia Vajda

  THALASSA is the journal of the Sándor Ferenczi Society, Budapest.
  THALASSA is the title of Sándor Ferenczi's classical work.
  THALASSA symbolically refers to the sea, the womb, the origin, the source.
  THALASSA is an interdisciplinary journal devoted to free investigations in psychoanalysis, culture and society.
  THALASSA has roots in the historical traditions of Hungarian psychoanalysis, but is not committed to any particular school or authority.
  THALASSA welcomes all original contributions, historical, theoretical, or critical, dealing with the common problems of psychoanalysis and the humanities.
The first issue of THALASSA (1990/1) is based on the proceedings of the first scientific conference of the Sándor Ferenczi Society, held in Budapest, 1989, under the title Psychoanalysis and Society. The second issue (1991/1) is devoted to the life and work of Sándor Ferenczi. The third issue of our review (1991/2) deals with the relationship between psychoanalysis and hermeneutics. The fourth issue (1992/1) is devoted to the problems of the relationship between psychoanalysis and politics. The fifth issue (1992/2) is a memorial volume devoted to the life and work of Géza Róheim. The sixth issue (1993/1) contains psychoanalytic studies on language, fiction and cognition. The seventh issue (1993/2) is devoted to the life work of the French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan. The focus theme of the eighth and ninth issue (1994/1-2) are the effects and aftereffects of the Holocaust-- from both psychoanalytic and psycho-social point of view. This issue commemorates the fiftieth anniversary of the Holocaust in Hungary. The tenth and eleventh issue (1995/1-2) contains articles on the relationship between psychoanalysis, post modernism, art, and mass phenomena. The main topic of the twelfth issue (1996/1) is the relationship between psychoanalysis and feminism.
  In the next, 1996/3 issue we will publish further articles on psychoanalysis, feminism and gender. In the same issue, Lívia Nemes's essay on the “enfant terrible" in psychoanalysis will be published, as well as texts by Georg Groddeck, Marcel Proust, Bruno Bettelheim and others. DESCRIPTION OF THE PRESENT ISSUE (1996/2)
  The present issue contains two main sections. The first is devoted to the life and work of LEOPOLD SZONDI, the founder of “fate analysis" (1893-1986), to commemorate the tenth anniversary of his death. After an Introduction written by ENIKÕ GYÖNGYÖSI-KISS, we publish three essays by Szondi, translated from the German originals. The first, Fate analysis in autobiography (Schicksalnalyse-- eine Selbstdarstellung) is a unique self-confession of the author about his life and his scientific development. In the second essay, The road to becoming human (Der weg zur Menschenwerdung) Szondi examines the philosophical basis of his theory, and its relationship to other schools of depth psychology (Freud, Adler, Jung and others.) The third essay, The languages of the unconscious: symptom, symbol and choice (Die Sprachen des Unbewussten: Symptom, Symbol und Wahl) is a detailed exposition of Szond's own theory and method of the fate analysis. Following the essays by Szondi, we publish two articles by the Swiss Szondi scholar KARL BÜRGI-MEYER. In the first article ( “The laboratory is a feverishly working society of ants") the author shows how Szondi's theory and method came into being and developed during his formative years in Hungary in the 1930s. The author also pays tribute to Szondi's collaborators, the members of his Budapest laboratory who contributed largely to the development of the fate analysis, and to the dissemination of his ideas. The second article is an interview with Mrs. MAGDA KERÉNYI, the wife of the late Professor Károly Kerényi, the great master of ancient Greek philology. The Kerényis, who lived in Switzerland from the forties on, became close family friends of the Szondis in their Zürich period. In the interview Mrs. Kerényi reveals many interesting and intimate details about Szondi's way of thinking, personality, character, and family life. As documentation, we reproduce here also a few pieces from Szondi's correspondence with SIGMUND FREUD, THOMAS MANN, and PÉTER BALÁZS, a Hungarian friend and disciple who emigrated to Brazil. We close this section by a contemporary application of Szondi's theory to the interpretation of literature (ENIK[[Otilde]] GYÖNGYÖSI-KISS: Crime and Punishment. A fate-analytic interpretation of Dostoyevskij's novel) .
  In the second main section we publish a series of short writings (book reviews, popular essays on natural and medical sciences, etc.) of SÁNDOR FERENCZI, stemming from his pre-psychoanalytic period. The writings reprinted here were originally published in 1903 and 1904 in the literary journal Jövendõ, edited by the well known Hungarian playwright and novelist Sándor Bródy, one of Ferenczi's friend. The present publication of these Ferenczi papers is introduced by an essay of SÁNDOR ZSOLDOS ( Sándor Ferenczi, the collaborator of Jövendõ ). The author exposes the history of the journal, and examines Ferenczi's less known literary connections.
  In the present issue we commemorate as well EDITH LUDOWYK- GYÖMR[[Otilde]]I, the Hungarian psychoanalyst who was born hundred years ago. Mrs. Ludowyk-Gyömrõi was a psychoanalyst of the Hungarian poet Attila József in the thirties, and later, in her emigration in Britain, a close collaborator of Anna Freud. We publish here two letters: one written by Mrs. Ludowyk-Gyömrõi to the Hungarian literary critic Erzsébet Vezér, and an other one written by Anna Freud to her Hungarian colleague.
  We accept contributions in Hungarian, English, German or French. Authors are requested to provide their papers with an English and/or Hungarian summary. Original articles, reviews, reflections, and suggestions should be sent to Dr. Ferenc Erõs, Institute of Psychology of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Teréz krt. 13., H- 1067 Budapest. Phone: (36-1) 322-0425, fax: (36-1) 342-0514. E-mail address: feros@orange.okt.cogpsyphy.hu
  THALASSA is published by the Thalassa Foundation, Budapest (address above). Subscription and distribution: SZIGET KISSZÖVETKEZET, Murányi u. 21, H-1078 Budapest, phone (36-1) 342-7158.

The present issue of THALASSA was supported by the National Cultural Fund of the Republic of Hungary, the Soros Foundation, the Stiftung Szondi-Institut Zurich, the Leopold Szondi Memorial Foundation, and the Pro Renovanda Cultura Hungariae Foundation.

Our E-mail address: thalassa@c3.hu