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[[Freud ]] described Ferenczi's <i>Thalassa. A [[Theory ]] of Genitality</i> as "the boldest application of [[psycho]]-[[analysis ]] that was ever attempted" (1933a, p. 228). It is worth noting that the Hungarian edition of the [[work ]] (Buda-pest, 1929) bore a different title: "Catastrophes in the [[Development ]] of the [[Genital ]] Function: A [[Psychoanalytic ]] Study."</p><p>Ferenczi takes as his first axis of reference the parallelism between catastrophic moments in the development of the embryo (or ontogenesis) on the one hand, and in the evolution of the [[species ]] (or phylogenesis) on the [[other]]. Proposing a vast fresco, summarized in a synoptic table of presumed parallels (p. 69) and based on Lamarck's evolutionary theories and on Haeckel's [[fundamental rule ]] of recapitulation, which it rounds out, he brings together two seemingly distinct [[temporal ]] perspectives: the [[time ]] of the germ cell, when the [[human ]] was a mere monoblast destined by fertilization to become an egg, then an embryo, and after [[birth ]] to continue [[living ]] in an extended dependency on the [[environment]]; and the time that begins with the emergence of [[organic ]] [[life ]] on earth, and which can be described by reference to the various ice ages of the [[Quaternary ]] era. How many tens of thousands of years were thus recapitulated in the transformation of the ovum into the newborn? As Nicolas [[Abraham ]] (1962) [[notes]], this "cosmogonic epic seeks its [[meaning ]] in the automatism of [[repetition ]] itself."</p><p>The second yardstick introduced by Ferenczi in his [[interpretation ]] of the [[erotic ]] meaning of [[reality]], of coitus, of [[sleep]], or of [[sexual ]] [[impotence ]] is [[regression]]. For the [[adult ]] man, coitus embodies a striving on the part of the ego toward a threefold [[identification]]: a [[symbolic ]] identification of the [[whole ]] organism with the [[phallic ]] function; a [[hallucinatory ]] (or [[specular]]) identification with the [[feminine ]] partner; and a [[real ]] identification, effected as "the genital secretion [does] in very [[truth ]] penetrate into the [[uterus]]" (p. 74), as the [[biology ]] of [[pleasure ]] makes the regeneration of the human [[being ]] into a [[material ]] reality. Ferenczi ascribes a traumatolytic function to the [[orgasm]]. To buttress these analogies, he takes as a [[model ]] the fusion of sexual cells familiar to embryology, extrapolating the [[notion ]] of "amphimixis" to account for the [[partial ]] erotisms of different organs. By analogy with disturbances of [[language]], he describes erectile dysfunction as "a kind of genital stuttering" (p. 9). He dubs his [[working ]] method "utraquism," meaning that a single phenomenon may be viewed in two complementary perspectives, so that [[technique ]] and theory have a recursive [[relationship]].</p><p>The ramifications of this [[text ]] of Ferenczi's were considerable. In <i>[[Totem ]] and [[Taboo]]</i> (1912-13a), Freud had constructed a [[myth ]] of the origin of [[civilization ]] on the basis of an [[animal]], human, and/or divine [[parricide]], reparation for which was due "out of [[love ]] for the [[father]]" and not just "in the [[name ]] of the father" (fraternal alliances, codification of the [[prohibition ]] against [[incest]]); in <i>Thalassa</i>, Ferenczi evokes a carnival of [[bodily ]] organs whose regressions serve to actualize symbolic remnants ([[marriage ]] bonds, the [[search ]] for the [[child ]] within the adult after post-[[traumatic ]] [[fragmentation]], and so on). With respect to later [[psychoanalysts]], it is clear that <i>Thalassa</i> is an [[anticipation ]] of Jacques [[Lacan]]'s [[thinking ]] on the [[logic ]] of the [[unconscious ]] and of his [[topography ]] of the [[Imaginary]], [[the Symbolic]], and [[the Real]]. The work also foreshadows [[future ]] [[psychosomatic ]] studies (which Ferenczi calls <i>bioanalysis</i>). It is worth noting that such authors as Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, André Leroi-Gourhan, Konrad Lorenz, Yves Coppens, and René Thom have arrived in this connection at equally original hypotheses.</p>

# [[Freud, Sigmund]]. (1912-13a). [[Totem and Taboo]]. SE, 13: 1-161.