21

The authors look at certain transference elements in the relationship between Freud and Abraham during the years when their collaboration contributed to conceptualizing, developing, defending and promoting the analytic cause. The narcissistic dimension of their mutual transference, which was also underpinned by their common Jewishness, explains in part the inextricable rivalry that developed between Jung and Abraham, as well as the disagreements between Freud and Abraham with regard to their understanding of melancholia. To support their arguments the authors draw on a number of texts published by each of the protagonists as well as the very rich, albeit somewhat truncated, correspondence between Freud and Abraham.