Elizabeth Severn

'Intrigue, betrayal, and seduction - the plotline of novels and mysteries – happens in real life too. A favorite son goes against his honored father’s teachings. Is he creating a new innovative vision? Or, is he being led astray by the seduction of an evil genius? A great storyline but what if the favorite son is Ferenczi? And the honored father Freud? And the presumed seductress Elizabeth Severn? What did and does psychoanalysis do with this dissonance in a science and a therapeutic endeavor sensitive to criticism and rejection? Rachmann’s wonderful book traces the hide and seek of the tale – the hiding of Severn’s identity, her and Ferenczi’s influence on the field, and her remarkable life and wisdom. All of this intertwined with multiple movements within psychoanalysis attempting to explore trauma and regression, intersubjectivity and the inevitable personal involvement of the analyst in the doings, understandings, misunderstandings, ambience, and mutual growth that emerges in both analysand and analyst in a successful clinical experience. Psychoanalysts, historians, and interested readers will all find much to learn and be intrigued by in Rachmann’s telling of his tale of seeking and finding Elizabeth Severn: The Evil Genius of Psychoanalysis.'

Joseph D. Lichtenberg, editor-in-chief of Psychoanalytic Inquiry and the Psychoanalytic Inquiry Book Series

'With the typically courageus attitude of the pioneer, Arnold Rachmann adds with this new volume another great piece in the puzzle of the reconstruction of the real story of psychoanalysis, not only what has been accepted and acknowledged but also what has remained unseen, unheard because silenced: the voice of Elizabeth Severn, one of the most important cases analysed by Sandor Ferenczi in his Clinical Diary. Himself a silenced voice because of his revolutionary treatment of severely abused patients, opposed by Freud who had abandoned the "seduction theory" for a fantasied version of it, Ferenczi has started receiving the due attention only in the last decades, at the end of the eighties, after the Diary has been published in English. With the precision and the acumen of the historian and the passion of the inspired detective and the spirit of the true searcher of truth (or I would say "witness"), Rachman has devoted over 10 years of research on the traces of Severn and his long-awaited findings are indeed a precious legacy: Through unknown material that appears here for the first time, the Severn Papers and the interview to Severn by Kurt Eisser, the figure of Severn as a pioneer psychoanalyst and one of the true heir of Ferenczi is finally reconstructed and rehabilitated. This is a book that is going to change the history of psychoanalysis and of trauma theory, restituting the right place to unjustly marginalised women psychoanalysts (with Severn also Clara Thomson and Izette De Forest): a must read not only for whoever is interested in the foundation of the Budapest School of Psychoanalysis (see Rachman ed. 2016) but for whoever cares for a kind of therapy and human research that is a form of passionate testimony based on mutuality, empathy and truth.'

Clara Mucci, professor of Clinical Psychology at the Univeristy of Chieti

'Arnold Rachman has been the heart and soul of the American psychoanalytic community, working to rediscover Sandor Ferenczi. He has been a meticulous historian, archivist and analyst of Ferenczi’s work. This book tells the story of the interlocking work and life and clinical encounters of Ferenczi and his patient Elizabeth Severn. In reviving Ferenczi’s reputation and work, he tells the story of Severn and mutual analysis as a inspired collaboration. In this volume we can trace the evolution one of the crucial developments in psychoanalysis: the role and potentiality of the analyst’s transference, countertransference and the intersubjective space in which psychic change may emerge.'

Adrienne E. Harris, co-founder, the Sandor Ferenczi Center, The New School University, NYC

'Arnold Rachman compiles a wealth of archival research on Elizabeth Severn and brings forth a rediscovery of one of the most controversial figures of early psychoanalysis. In a concerted effort to rehabilitate both Severn's reputation and the historical account of Sandor Ferenczi's work with her, Dr. Rachman offers a revisionist narrative of their clinical encounter and of Severn's professional life.'

Romy Reading is a licensed clinical psychologist in private practice specializing in individual psychological treatment for adults and adolescents. To read this review in full please visit: Reading, R. A. (2022) Elizabeth Severn: the “evil genius” of psychoanalysis, by Arnold Rachman, New York, Routledge, 2018, 234 pp, $48.95, ISBN: 978-1-138-12286-4. International Journal of Psychoanalysis 103:914-918