The relaxation principle and neo-catharsis is an element in analytic technique that complements the principle of frustration and makes it possible to reach moments of self-hypnotic analytic trance. For Ferenczi this represented technical progress because, along with the analysis of the transference, this relaxation made it possible to reach very deep zones of the intrapsychic teratome consequent to precocious traumatisms (he uses a metaphor from embryology, the teratome being a tumor whose appearance evokes the different stages of embryonic development). A laissez-faire principle establishes the relaxation that is already implicit in the notion of free association.

Ferenczi describes how, with the help of this relaxation and this trust, the patient reaches trance states, transitory fits of veritable hysteria that have the great advantage of "giving a feeling of reality and objectivity that is closer to a real memory."...