Gratification versus frustration: The legacy of the schism between Ferenczi and Freud

The tension between whether to gratify or frustrate a patient reappears countless times in the course of every therapeutic treatment. This tension, so dramatically encapsulated in the relationship between Ferenczi and Freud, and resurfaced repeatedly in the writings and teachings of such influential thinkers as Alexander, Greenson, Stone, Brenner, Winnicott, Kohut and Kernberg.In this paper, we track how the general concepts of frustration and gratification continually re-emerge in one or another form, and are considered and debated by our most gifted psychoanalytic writers.