Fate analysis

1. Introduction

Version followed: the Szondi-Institut Zürich training model as set out in its official Manual der schicksalsanalytischen Therapie (Jüttner, Seidel, Borner et al., Szondi Verlag 2002), anchored in Szondi's own Schicksalsanalyse (1944/3rd ed.), Ich-Analyse (1956), Freiheit und Zwang im Schicksal des Einzelnen and Schicksalsanalytische Therapie: Ein Lehrbuch der passiven und aktiven analytischen Psychotherapie (Huber 1963). Diagnostic instrument: the Szondi test (Experimentelle Triebdiagnostik, 1947; Lehrbuch der experimentellen Triebdiagnostik, 3rd ed. 1972). Where the Institute manual's three-phase sequence and Szondi's 1963 "active" techniques diverge in detail, the manual's sequence is followed and Szondi's techniques are slotted into its fate-analytic phase. [source: Manual pp. 11–19; Szondi, Freiheit und Zwang pp. 33–35]

Source limits: the 1963 therapy textbook itself (where Szondi details the active techniques, cited as "fifth book pp. 149–190") and the manual's treatment chapters (Teil III, pp. 91–176) are not drawn on; only their tables of contents and summaries in other Institute texts are used. Step-by-step procedures for those chapters are therefore marked [synthesis] or [uncertain].

What it is. Schicksalsanalyse (fate analysis) is Leopold Szondi's depth psychology of the familial unconscious: a layer between Freud's personal and Jung's collective unconscious, in which latent "ancestral figures" (Ahnenfiguren) press for repetition through a person's choices in love, friendship, work, illness and death (genotropism). [source: Szondi, Schicksalsanalyse pp. 15, 33, 41; szondi.ch/schicksalsanalyse]

How change happens. An inherited Zwangsschicksal (compulsive fate) becomes a Wahl- or Freiheitsschicksal (chosen fate) when (1) the ancestral claims are made conscious, (2) the ego takes a stance toward them (affirm, negate, transform or integrate), and (3) the ego, as Pontifex oppositorum (bridge-builder of opposites), integrates contradictory tendencies and participates in a supra-personal value. The aim is a "lenkbarer Fatalismus" (steerable fatalism), not liberation from heredity. [source: Szondi, Freiheit und Zwang pp. 21–23, 33–34; Heilwege p. 16–17; de.wikipedia Leopold Szondi]

2. Framework

The Institute manual describes three phases plus a closing ego-analytic step; the fate-analytic part is used "as needed", i.e. not every client receives it. [source: Manual pp. 18–19]

Short-form variants exist: Institute-affiliated couple counselling averaged about three sessions per couple with three test administrations and structured test feedback [source: Genton-Meier, Szondiana 2001 pp. 33–37]. The Institute also certifies one-year "angewandte Schicksalsanalyse", two-year counselling and half-year "Selbstmanagement" courses [source: szondi.ch/aus-weiterbildung].

Criteria for moving between phases

• Assessment → treatment: diagnosis, indication and written/agreed goals exist; client informed about method [source: Manual TOC pp. 113–120].
• Psychoanalytic → fate-analytic: personal-unconscious material is sufficiently worked through and repetitive patterns point beyond the personal biography (same choice/illness/fate patterns in the genogram, test signs matching family figures) [source: Manual pp. 18–19; criteria wording is [synthesis]].
• Passive → active methods: familial contents "cannot be experienced in the transference" or not sufficiently [source: Manual p. 19].
• Fate-analytic → Ich-Analyse: ancestral claims are named, experienced and confronted, so the ego can now take a position [source: Manual TOC pp. 153–162; Freiheit und Zwang p. 33].
• Ending: [uncertain] the manual's ending chapter is not drawn on here. Working criterion [synthesis]: the client can name the ancestral claims, describes current choices as his/her own, has a sustainable (often vocational or social) channel for the formerly compulsive tendency, and repeated test profiles show more drive mixing/less extreme loadings.

3. Guiding principles

• Familial unconscious as the third layer. Ask not only "what happened to you" but "whose pattern are you living"; take repetitions across generations seriously. [source: Schicksalsanalyse p. 6, 17]
• Choice is the expression of fate. Partner, friends, profession, illness form and manner of death are read as genotropic choices; explore why this one and no other. [source: Schicksalsanalyse pp. 15, 33]
• Zwang and Freiheit coexist. Never promise freedom from heredity; work for the space of choice inside it. [source: Freiheit und Zwang pp. 21–23]
• Fate is a rotating stage. Every inherited tendency has several possible forms (pathological, milder, socialised, sublimated); stuckness in one form is the problem, not the tendency. [source: Freiheit und Zwang pp. 22–23, 35]
• Psychoanalysis first, fate analysis as needed. Do not jump to ancestors before the personal history, transference and resistance have been worked. [source: Manual p. 18]
• Confrontation complements interpretation. When understanding is not enough, bring the client face to face with the claim. [source: Manual p. 19]
• Dose the activity. Intensity of active methods depends on therapist style and client personality; adapt to ego strength. [source: Manual p. 19]
• Working-through is applied ego psychology. Every step aims at strengthening the ego's capacities to perceive, take a stance and integrate. [source: Manual p. 17; szondi.ch/schicksalsanalyse "Ich-Stärkung"]
• Pontifex functions are the active factors. Integration, transcendence and participation are both the goal and the steps of therapy. [source: Manual p. 17]
• Dialectics, not either–or. Drive needs come in complementary pairs; aim at integrating both poles rather than repressing one. Only truly contradictory oppositions require a choice. [source: szondi.ch/schicksalsanalyse; Kairos 131]
• Resource orientation. Ancestors also carry better existence forms; actively look for and mobilise positive hereditary potentials. [source: szondi.ch/schicksalsanalyse; blog 9]
• Abstinence and evenly suspended attention in the analytic phases. [source: Manual pp. 18, 127]
• Free choice has conditions. A choice counts as free only when both tendencies are conscious, the ego takes a stance, and that stance can still vary. [source: Freiheit und Zwang p. 47]
• Use countertransference as data, including the urge to intervene or restlessness, when reading familial themes. [source: Grämiger, Szondiana 2001 p. 10]
• The test describes possibilities, not verdicts. Profiles show the current drive constellation and the range of existence possibilities to be confronted, not a fixed diagnosis. [source: Manual pp. 19, 38; Szondiana 2001 pp. 35–37]

4. Complete intervention inventory

Order follows the manual's phase sequence. Named components are sourced; where the sources name a technique but the step-by-step text is not given in the sources, the steps are flagged [synthesis] or [uncertain]. No technique below is invented: each is named in a primary or Institute source.

4.1 Intake and first contact (Anmeldung und Erstkontakt)

• Purpose / when: First session(s). Clarify the request, current suffering and motivation, and decide whether assessment proceeds. [source: Manual TOC p. 93]
• Steps [synthesis]: (1) Let the client state the problem freely. (2) Note recurring life choices (partner, job, illness, accidents). (3) Explain that assessment includes a life history, a family tree and a picture-choice test. (4) Agree on the number of assessment sessions.
• Language (illustrative): "Before we decide on treatment, I'd like a few sessions to understand your story and your family's story."
• Watch for: Spontaneous mention of relatives ("just like my uncle") is early familial material: note it, don't interpret it yet.

4.2 Personal history and curriculum vitae (persönliche Anamnese, Lebenslauf)

• Purpose / when: Assessment. Map the personal biography the psychoanalytic phase will work on. [source: Manual pp. 18, 99]
• Steps [synthesis]: Ask for a written or oral CV. Then go through it focusing on the five choice areas (love, friendship, profession, illness, near-death or suicidal events). For each choice, ask "why this one and no other". [Szondi's question form: Schicksalsanalyse p. 15]
• Language (illustrative): "Of all the people you could have married, what drew you to her?"
• Working sign: The client starts noticing patterns in their own choices.

4.3 Family history and genogram (Familienanamnese, Stammbaum / Genosoziogramm)

• Purpose / when: Assessment, revisited throughout. This is Szondi's "genotropic family research". It identifies ancestral figures, meaning the existence forms and illnesses in the lineage that may press for repetition. [source: Schicksalsanalyse p. 82; Manual pp. 18, 100; szondi.ch/schicksalsanalyse; Szondiana 2001 p. 32]
• Steps: (1) Draw at least three generations on both sides, including partners' families. Szondi also looked at the partner's lineage for partner choice. (2) For each person, record profession, partner choice, illnesses (psychiatric, epileptic, addictive, suicidal), crimes, cause and manner of death, and notable talents. (3) Mark repetitions and figures the client resembles or avoids. (4) Mark positive existence forms as resources too. [steps 2–4: synthesis from Schicksalsanalyse areas of choice]
• Language (illustrative): "Who in your family had a life like the one you're afraid of? And who managed something you'd like?"
• Watch for: Gaps and family secrets, which are often where the active ancestral claims sit. Don't stigmatise, and treat heredity talk sensitively. Working sign: The client recognises "lines" that run into their own choices.

4.4 Szondi test administration (single and series)

• Purpose / when: Assessment. It can also be repeated in therapy to show how the drive constellation is changing. The test gives the drive profile and the "existence possibilities" for later confrontation. [source: Manual pp. 18–19, 103; szondi.ch/schicksalsanalyse]
• Material and framework (stimuli not reproduced): 48 portrait photographs in six sets of eight. Each picture represents one of eight drive factors in four vectors:
  • S (sexual): h (tenderness, passivity), s (activity, aggression)
  • P (paroxysmal / affect): e (accumulation and discharge of crude affect, ethical control), hy (showing oneself, display)
  • Sch (ego): k (ego contraction, "systole"), p (ego expansion, "diastole")
  • C (contact): d (seeking or holding objects), m (clinging, enjoyment)
  [source: szondiforum t420; en.wikipedia Szondi test]
• Steps: (1) Seat the client facing you and lay out one set in two rows of four. (2) Ask for the two pictures liked most, then the two disliked most. (3) Record the choices and repeat for all six sets (about 10–30 min). (4) If the client asks how to choose, suggest imagining which people they would talk to in a room. (5) If the client "likes none" or "dislikes none", ask for the two disliked least or liked less. (6) For a series, repeat 6–10 times at least one day apart, and tell the client to choose by present feeling, not past choices. (7) Score each factor: + (mainly liked), − (mainly disliked), ± (≥4 choices, balanced), 0 (≤2 choices). A factor counts as loaded at ≥4 choices. [source: szondiforum t420 (Deri-based); Demolder pdf; Szondiana 2001 p. 33]
• Background profile (EKP): Szondi also built a background or complementary profile from secondary choices. Sources differ on the procedure. One version records ranking choices among the remaining pictures; the other forms new sets from the first-stage picks. [uncertain] Follow the Lehrbuch (1972) or Institute training.
• Language (illustrative): "Please don't think too long, just go by your first feeling about each face."
• Watch for: Interpretation is dialectical and trained. Don't hand the client factor labels as diagnoses. The Institute offers a one-year test certificate. [source: szondi.ch/aus-weiterbildung; szondiforum t444]

4.5 Problems, conflicts and resources assessment

• Purpose / when: End of assessment. List current conflicts and resources, including positive ancestral potentials. [source: Manual TOC pp. 104–108; szondi.ch/schicksalsanalyse]
• Steps [synthesis]: Combine the CV, genogram and test into two lists: (a) compulsive patterns and conflicts, and (b) resources. For (b), use drive needs the client can live in a healthy form, plus ancestors who lived the same tendency constructively.
• Language (illustrative): "Your grandfather's temper also made him the one who stood up for the village. That strength is in the family too."
• Working sign: The client can name at least one family resource.

4.6 Diagnosis, indication, prognosis, goal formulation, informing the client

• Purpose / when: Close of assessment. [source: Manual TOC pp. 113–120]
• Steps [synthesis]: (1) State the functional (drive) diagnosis before the clinical syndrome. The manual says a single overloaded factor or repeated 0-reactions signal a problem, but a trait is not an illness. (2) Indicate: the method especially suits people who feel compelled to repeat ancestors' life patterns. (3) Formulate goals with the client. (4) Explain the phases and that the fate-analytic part is used only if needed. [source: Manual p. 38; de.wikipedia Leopold Szondi]
• Language (illustrative): "Our goal isn't to erase your inheritance but to widen your choices within it."

4.7 Structured test feedback

• Purpose / when: After assessment, or in short counselling. Deepen self-understanding and point out directions for development. [source: Genton-Meier, Szondiana 2001 pp. 35–37]
• Steps [partly synthesis]: (1) Present the profile as a picture of current needs and tensions, in everyday language. (2) Show which needs are strong, rejected or in conflict. (3) For couples, show how their profiles interlock. (4) End with resources and possible directions.
• Language (illustrative): "Right now you seem to hold back your need to be seen. Where in your life could that need have a place?"
• Working sign: The client responds with recognition and new ideas, which Genton-Meier reports as an impressive positive reaction.

4.8 Free association

• Purpose / when: The psychoanalytic phase, and "passive association methods" in the fate-analytic phase. [source: Manual pp. 18, 126]
• Steps: Standard psychoanalytic rule. Invite the client to say everything that comes to mind without selecting. In the fate-analytic phase, invite associations to family figures, names and genogram nodes [synthesis].
• Language (illustrative): "Say whatever comes up, even if it seems irrelevant or embarrassing."
• Watch for: Associations that drift unprompted to relatives, or the client speaking in a relative's idiom.

4.9 Listening and evenly suspended attention

• Purpose / when: Throughout the analytic phases. [source: Manual p. 127]
• Steps: Listen without directing. Register repetitions, slips and affect shifts, and hold hypotheses about the personal and familial levels in parallel.
• Watch for: Your own restlessness or urge to intervene. Szondian practitioners use it as countertransference information. [source: Szondiana 2001 p. 10]

4.10 Interpretation (Deuten)

• Purpose / when: Psychoanalytic phase, and alongside confrontation later. [source: Manual pp. 18, 130]
• Steps [standard psychoanalytic; manual text not accessed]: Interpret defence before content, link the present to biography, and time the interpretation to the client's readiness.
• Language (illustrative): "When you describe your boss, you use the same words you used for your father."
• Working sign: New memories or affect follow, rather than intellectual agreement.

4.11 Reconstruction and construction

• Purpose / when: Psychoanalytic phase. Rebuild the personal history from fragments. [source: Manual p. 135]
• Steps [synthesis]: Offer tentative narratives linking scattered material, and invite the client to correct them.
• Language (illustrative): "Could it be that after your brother's illness, nobody had room for your anger?"

4.12 Handling transference

• Purpose / when: Throughout. In fate analysis, the transference may carry ancestral figures as well as parents. [source: Manual pp. 18–19, 137]
• Steps [synthesis]: Notice who you are being made into. Ask whether that figure is a parent or a figure in the genogram. Interpret it at the level the material supports.
• Language (illustrative): "You expect me to judge you the way your grandmother judged everyone. Maybe that judgement is older than both of us."
• Working sign: Familial material becomes experienceable in the relationship. If it doesn't, move to active methods (4.18–4.21).

4.13 Handling countertransference

• Purpose / when: Throughout. [source: Manual p. 141; Szondiana 2001 p. 10]
• Steps: Monitor your own feelings and impulses, especially pulls to act in the client's family role, and use them as information about which drive factor or ancestral claim is active.

4.14 Resistance analysis

• Purpose / when: Whenever the work stalls. [source: Manual p. 144]
• Steps [standard psychoanalytic]: Name the resistance, explore its function, and interpret it before the content it guards. In the fate-analytic phase, consider that resistance may protect family loyalty or a family secret [synthesis].
• Language (illustrative): "Each time we approach your mother's side of the family, we end up talking about the weather."

4.15 Dream interpretation, including ancestral dreams (Ahnenträume)

• Purpose / when: Both analytic phases. In the fate-analytic phase, dreams are a main passive route to the familial unconscious. Szondi, like Freud, treated dreams as the royal road. [source: Manual pp. 18, 146; de.wikipedia Schicksalsanalyse]
• Steps [synthesis]: (1) Work the dream associatively in the usual way. (2) Then ask whether any figure, setting or action matches a person or event in the genogram. (3) Treat recurring "strange" figures the client can't place as possible ancestral figures. Check them against the family history; don't assert it.
• Language (illustrative): "The old man in uniform in your dream: does anyone in your family tree come to mind?"
• Working sign: The dream figure links to genogram material and carries affect.

4.16 Opening the fate-analytic phase

• Purpose / when: After the personal material has been worked through, when repetitions point beyond the biography. [source: Manual TOC p. 152]
• Steps [synthesis]: (1) Summarise the personal-level work. (2) Point out the patterns that remain unexplained. (3) Bring the genogram and test profile back into the sessions. (4) Get explicit consent to work at the family level.
• Language (illustrative): "We understand a lot about your childhood, but this pattern also shows up two generations back. Shall we look at what you may be carrying for the family?"

4.17 Recognising ancestral claims (Erkennen der Ahnenansprüche)

• Purpose / when: First task of the fate-analytic phase: uncover the ancestral figures and make their "fate possibilities" conscious. [source: Manual TOC p. 153; Heilwege p. 17; Freiheit und Zwang p. 33]
• Steps: Triangulate three sources: (a) genogram figures, (b) loaded or extreme test factors, and (c) the client's repetitive choices and symptoms. Where all three point to the same tendency (e.g. paroxysmal, paranoid, depressive), name it as a hypothesis of an ancestral claim. Szondi describes the ego first becoming aware of the claim through projection, then inflation. [source: Freiheit und Zwang p. 33; triangulation = synthesis]
• Language (illustrative): "Your uncle's outbursts, your strong e-reactions on the test and your sudden job resignations may all be the same family tendency asking for a place."
• Watch for: Over-literal "genetic" explanations, which can lead to fatalism. Keep the claim framed as a possibility.

4.18 Bringing forth and letting the ancestors be experienced (Hervorholen und Erlebenlassen der Ahnen)

• Purpose / when: When ancestral claims are known intellectually but not felt. [source: Manual TOC p. 158]
• Steps: [uncertain: chapter not accessed]. Sourced elements: passive association to family material, dream work, and transference experience. If these fail, use the active methods (4.19–4.22). [source: Manual p. 19]
• Working sign: The client experiences the ancestral tendency affectively, e.g. feels the rage or the urge, rather than only knowing about it.

4.19 Confrontation with ancestral claims and existence possibilities

• Purpose / when: Core active method. It complements interpretation when familial contents can't be experienced through the transference. It confronts therapist and client with familial drives, ancestral claims, and the existence possibilities shown in the genogram and test. [source: Manual pp. 19, 161; szondiforum t418]
• Steps [partly synthesis]: (1) Place the evidence in front of the client: the genogram line, the relevant test profiles, and their own repeated choices. (2) State the claim directly. (3) Lay out the range of possible existence forms of that tendency, from pathological through milder, socialised and humanised. (4) Ask which form the client is living and which they would choose. Adjust intensity to ego strength.
• Language (illustrative): "Here is the line: your great-grandfather, your aunt, now you. The same drive takes different shapes. Which shape do you want it to take in your life?"
• Working sign: Affect plus a beginning stance ("I don't want to be like him, but I do want his courage"). Watch for: Flooding or depersonalisation. Reduce intensity if they appear.

4.20 Echolalic association technique

• Purpose / when: One of the active association techniques, used when passive methods don't reach the familial material. [source: Manual p. 19]
• Steps: [uncertain] The manual names the technique but the procedure wasn't accessible. The name suggests the therapist echoes or has the client repeat key words or phrases. Learn the procedure from the 1963 textbook or Institute training before using it.

4.21 Iterative (repetitive) association technique

• Purpose / when: Active technique, same indication as 4.20. [source: Manual p. 19; szondiforum t418 "repetitive, iterative"]
• Steps: [uncertain] The name suggests repeated association to the same stimulus (a word, name or picture) until defences give way. Szondi's detailed version is in Schicksalsanalytische Therapie (1963). Kürsteiner (1987) is cited for these techniques.

4.22 Shock-like association technique: Psychoschock and "Hammerschlag"

• Purpose / when: Szondi's special active methods for making unconscious ancestral claims experienceable, especially claims that were never conscious and so could not be repressed. [source: Freiheit und Zwang p. 35, citing the fifth book pp. 149–190; Manual p. 19; Hughes/szondiforum 481 on Nyon psychoshock experiments]
• Steps: [uncertain] No accessible source describes the procedure. Use it only after Institute training and with ego-strong clients [synthesis]. Don't improvise a "shock" intervention.
• Watch for: Risk of destabilisation. Psychotic, paroxysmal or suicidal family lines call for extra caution (see 5).

4.23 Ego analysis: taking a stance (Ich-Analyse / Analyse des Freiheitsschicksals)

• Purpose / when: Final phase. The ego, now aware of the claim, takes a position toward it. Szondi lists the stances as affirm and introject; or negate, avoid, devalue or destroy. [source: Freiheit und Zwang p. 33; Manual pp. 17, 19, 162]
• Steps: (1) Name the four ego functions at work: projection, inflation, introjection, negation. (2) For each ancestral claim, ask the client to state openly whether they will take it up, refuse it, or transform it. (3) Check the conditions for free choice: both tendencies are conscious, the ego takes a stance, and the stance can still vary. [source: Freiheit und Zwang p. 47; steps 1–2 = synthesis]
• Language (illustrative): "You've seen the line. Now it's your decision: what do you take from it, and what do you leave?"
• Working sign: Choices become deliberate and flexible rather than rigid. Blanket total rejection is itself a sign of compulsion.

4.24 Integration (Pontifex function 1)

• Purpose / when: Ego-analysis phase. Bridge complementary opposites within the drive system (e.g. h and s, k and p) instead of repressing one pole. [source: Freiheit und Zwang pp. 33–34; Kairos 131; Manual p. 17]
• Steps [synthesis]: Identify a pair the client splits. Explore what each pole is for. Look for a life form that lets both live, e.g. tenderness and assertiveness in one role.
• Language (illustrative): "You keep choosing between being gentle and being strong. What would a life look like that needs both?"
• Note: Truly contradictory oppositions, such as life vs death, can't be integrated and need a choice. [source: Kairos 131]

4.25 Transcendence and participation (Pontifex functions 2–3)

• Purpose / when: Late phase. Connect the ego to a supra-personal idea (humanity, art, science, religion) and sustain that connection. Szondi saw this as the most salutary route to a freer fate. [source: Freiheit und Zwang p. 34; Kairos 131; Manual p. 17]
• Steps [synthesis]: Explore what the client values beyond themselves. Link the transformed drive tendency to it. Plan concrete, ongoing engagement, such as volunteering, creative work or a community.
• Language (illustrative): "Where could this fire of yours serve something bigger than you?"
• Watch for: Unmoderated participation can become blind ideological fusion. Check that the engagement is chosen, not compulsive. [source: szondi.ch blog 11]

4.26 Indirect technique A: socially positive reversal via profession (operotropism)

• Purpose / when: When a drive tendency is socially negative and wasn't repressed but was never conscious. Redirect it into a socially positive form, especially through career choice. Szondi's examples: latent pyromania into firefighting; latent schizoform tendency into psychiatric work. [source: Freiheit und Zwang p. 35; Schicksalsanalyse pp. 260–336, 489]
• Steps: (1) Help the client see the link between their compulsive tendency and possible vocations. (2) Explore professions in which the same drive works constructively. (3) Support a concrete choice or reorientation.
• Language (illustrative): "The urge to control danger can wreck a life or save lives. Which jobs use exactly that urge?"
• Working sign: The vocation satisfies the drive and symptom pressure falls.

4.27 Indirect technique B: reversal of split-off ego parts

• Purpose / when: When an ego position is pathologically fixed. Reverse it into another existence form; Szondi's examples are persecutory into compulsive-working, and grandiose into an itinerant, travel-based life. [source: Freiheit und Zwang p. 35]
• Steps: [uncertain]. Szondi gives examples, not steps. Explore which ego form could absorb the energy of the fixed position, and support the client in trying it.

4.28 Indirect technique C: exchanging a pathological form for a milder one

• Purpose / when: When the genogram and test show the hereditary tendency has milder forms in the family. Support a shift toward the milder form; Szondi's example is paroxysmal migraine in place of a paranoid-schizoform form. [source: Freiheit und Zwang p. 35, case 24]
• Steps: [uncertain]. Use the genogram to find the milder variants relatives have lived, show them to the client as real possibilities, and work toward them.

4.29 Test series as course monitoring and session "signing"

• Purpose / when: Throughout. Repeat Szondi tests to track change in the drive constellation. Optionally, code each session's themes by drive factor (healthy or pathological) to chart the course and spot "shadow" needs that never come up. [source: Grämiger, Szondiana 2001 pp. 6–8; szondiforum t420]
• Steps: After each session, note which factors the themes touched. Review periodically for needs that are always absent, and treat these as candidates for integration. Grämiger warns that turning this into therapy plans needs caution because of subjectivity.

4.30 Preparing for atonement and mobilising inherited strengths

• Purpose / when: When unconscious family guilt or a need for punishment drives the repetition. [source: szondi.ch blog 9 (Institute author)]
• Steps: (1) Separate inherited family guilt from guilt personally incurred. (2) Look for the ancestral origin of the guilt. (3) Prepare the client that making amends may involve accepting disadvantages. (4) Actively mobilise ancestors' strengths.
• Language (illustrative): "Some of this guilt was never yours to begin with. Let's find out whose it is."

4.31 Self-management between sessions (intuition exercise)

• Purpose / when: As homework. From the Institute's self-management approach. [source: szondi.ch blog 5]
• Steps: Several times, sit still without distractions (TV, alcohol, sweets) and let intuitive feelings arise. Examine your current way of living honestly. Follow what suddenly makes sense rather than arguing with it.
• Language (illustrative): "This week, take three quiet half-hours with no screens and note what your gut tells you about this decision."

5. Handling problems

The sources read give the following sourced guidance: resistance and transference analysis (Manual pp. 137–146), the shift to active methods when material can't be experienced, and the dosing of confrontation (Manual p. 19). Everything else below is marked [synthesis].

• Stuck client: personal material exhausted, pattern persists. This is the sourced indication for moving to the fate-analytic phase. Bring back the genogram and test and look for the repetition beyond the biography. [source: Manual pp. 18–19]
• Stuck client: ancestral claims understood but not felt. Move from passive methods to confrontation (4.19). If confrontation also fails, consider active association techniques, but only with training (4.20–4.22). [source: Manual p. 19]
• Stuck client: fatalism ("it's in my genes, nothing helps"). [synthesis] Cite the core principle that Zwang and Freiheit coexist. Show relatives who lived the same tendency in a milder or socialised form (4.28, 4.26). Reframe the goal as steering, not escaping. [principle: Freiheit und Zwang pp. 21–23]
• Resistance as family loyalty. [synthesis] When the client protects a parent or ancestor, acknowledge the loyalty before interpreting it, and separate inherited guilt from one's own (4.30). Use standard resistance analysis (4.14).
• Resistance to the genogram ("I don't know my family", secrets, adoption). [synthesis] Work with what is known, plus test profiles and dreams. Szondi created the test partly because patients couldn't recall relatives' histories. [source: Hughes intro, szondiforum 481] Don't push the client to investigate relatives against their will.
• Overwhelm during confrontation or active techniques. [synthesis] Stop the active method. Return to the here and now and to supportive, ego-strengthening work. Lower the intensity next time; the manual allows intensity to vary with personality (Manual p. 19). Don't use shock-like techniques with fragile ego structure, a psychotic family line, or acute suicidality.
• Suicidal or violent family lines. The Institute notes that guilt which can't be worked through can lead to repeating ancestral acts. It cites a case with suicidal tendencies and murderers and suicides in the family tree. [source: szondi.ch blog 9] [synthesis] Treat such genogram findings as risk factors. Run a standard risk assessment and safety planning, and postpone active techniques.
• Non-adherence to test series or homework. [synthesis] One to three administrations can be enough; short counselling used about three (Szondiana 2001 p. 33). Explore the meaning of refusal as material, e.g. fear of being "read".
• Client wants test results as a verdict. [synthesis] Give results as current tendencies and possibilities (4.7). Avoid psychiatric factor labels, because the stimulus categories are psychiatric and can frighten or stigmatise.
• Ruptures. [synthesis] Check whether the rupture repeats a familial figure in the transference (4.12). Acknowledge your own part, and use countertransference awareness (4.13).
• Rigid either–or choice in ego analysis (e.g. total rejection of a parent's line). [synthesis] Recall that free choice requires both tendencies to be conscious and the stance to be variable (Freiheit und Zwang p. 47). Explore what would be lost by full negation, and offer integration (4.24).
• Over-identification with an ancestral figure or ideological participation. [synthesis] Distinguish chosen participation from compulsive fusion (szondi.ch blog 11). Explore which drive need the identification satisfies, and look for a less totalising form.
• Therapist doubts about hereditary theory. [synthesis] The clinical procedures (genogram, confrontation, stance-taking, operotropic reorientation) can be used as working hypotheses about family patterns. The Institute blog itself presents transmission mechanisms as open questions (blog 9). Stay transparent with clients about this.
• Modality-specific: untrained use of the Szondi test or active techniques. Test interpretation and active techniques are taught in Institute courses (1-year test certificate; 4-year therapy title). Before mastering them, limit yourself to genogram, test feedback in plain language, choice-focused exploration and ego-stance work. [source: szondi.ch/aus-weiterbildung; recommendation = synthesis]

Sources

Sources

• Szondi-Institut Zürich – home
• Szondi-Institut – Schicksalsanalyse
• Szondi-Institut – Aus- und Weiterbildung
• Szondi-Institut – Leopold Szondi
• Szondi-Institut – Kostenlose Publikationen
• Jüttner, Seidel, Borner et al. – Manual der schicksalsanalytischen Therapie (PDF, excerpt pp. 11–56 + TOC)
• Szondi – Freiheit und Zwang im Schicksal des Einzelnen (PDF)
• Szondi – Schicksalsanalyse (PDF)
• Szondi et al. – Heilwege der Tiefenpsychologie (PDF)
• Szondi – Integration der Triebe (PDF)
• Szondiana 2001 (Grämiger; Genton-Meier)
• szondi.ch blog 5 – Die Intuition
• szondi.ch blog 9 – Schuld und Sühne: Ahnenzwang
• szondi.ch blog 10 – Die vier Triebe
• szondi.ch blog 11 – Ich-Trieb (Sch)
• Jüttner, Seidel, Borner – Fundamental Concepts of Fate Analysis (Szondi Forum t418)
• Szondi test administration and scoring (Szondi Forum t420)
• Szondi Forum t444
• Szondi Forum doc 481 (Hughes, introduction)
• Szondi Forum doc 484 (Schotte tribute)
• Demolder – La théorie pulsionnelle du Dr L. Szondi (PDF)
• Destins précaires et précieux de la liberté chez Léopold Szondi (Kairos 131)
• Loch – review of Schicksalsanalytische Therapie, Psyche 1964 (PEP record)
• Huth – Der Mensch in der Sicht der Schicksalsanalyse
• Deutsche Biographie – Szondi, Leopold
• Wikipedia (de) – Leopold Szondi
• Wikipedia (de) – Schicksalsanalyse
• Wikipedia (de) – Szondi-Test
• Wikipedia (en) – Szondi test
• Wikipedia (en) – Léopold Szondi
• Prezi – Die Schicksalsanalyse von Leopold Szondi

Books cited (not fully accessed)

• Szondi, L. (1963). Schicksalsanalytische Therapie. Ein Lehrbuch der passiven und aktiven analytischen Psychotherapie. Bern: Huber. (Primary text for active techniques; not drawn on here.)
• Szondi, L. (1956). Ich-Analyse. Bern: Huber.
• Szondi, L. (1944; 3rd ed.). Schicksalsanalyse: Wahl in Liebe, Freundschaft, Beruf, Krankheit und Tod. Basel: Schwabe.
• Szondi, L. (1947; 3rd ed. 1972). Experimentelle Triebdiagnostik / Lehrbuch der experimentellen Triebdiagnostik. Bern: Huber.
• Jüttner, F., Seidel, P., Borner, M. et al. (2002). Manual der schicksalsanalytischen Therapie. Zürich: Szondi Verlag.
• Kürsteiner (1987). Cited in the Manual for the active association techniques; not accessed.
• Deri, S. (1949). Introduction to the Szondi Test. Basis of the szondiforum t420 administration summary; not accessed directly.