1911

 

99A

Berlin W.
11 January 1911

Dear Professor,

Segantini is finished and is coming to you as soon as it has been copied.

Many thanks for your letter. I am glad that the Schriften zur angewandten Seelenkunde are succeeding each other so rapidly. Today I have to ask you something related to them.

In the last session of our local group, a Russian doctor, Frl. Dr Rosenthal, who had already been our guest on several occasions, gave a talk: “Psychoanalytical Remarks on Karin Michaëlis's ‘The Dangerous Age'”.1 The lecture was—particularly for a beginner who was in Zurich for a short time and had a little more experience with me—quite outstanding and really deserves to be published. The question is, where. According to the calculations of the authoress, two to three printed sheets could come out. As the subject is topical, it would be desirable for it to appear soon. I thought I might do it like this: I will go through the work in detail with Frl. Dr R., then send it to you and ask your opinion as to whether the paper is suitable for the Sammlung [Schriften] (and whether we would have to wait not too long for publication). Otherwise I would ask you to hand the manuscript on to the Zentralblatt. Do you agree with this?

I am quite pleased with our group. In February Stegmann—who comes from Dresden every time—is speaking on asthma.

The main question that interests us here is the next congress. Presumably it will again be at Easter? Do you know something definite about it already?

Recently I had a visit from a doctor from Stockholm, who was on his way to you.² He was very well-informed. My ambition as President of the local group is to extend it as soon as possible to Scandinavia.

With cordial greetings from house to house,

Yours,

Abraham

¹. Rosenthal, 1911, which later appeared in the Zentralblatt; Michaëlis, 1910. Tatiana Rosenthal [1885–1921], born in St Petersburg, studied medicine in Zurich. Member of the Vienna Society [1911–21]. Around 1914 she returned to St. Petersburg, where she practised as a psychoanalyst, lectured on psychoanalysis, and headed a polyclinic as well as a children's clinic. In 1921 she committed suicide at the age of 36. (Cf. Mühlleitner, 1992: pp. 275f.)

Karin Michaëlis [1872–1950], Danish writer, lived in the United States during the Second World War [until 1946]. She wrote novels about adolescent girls, centring on their psyche.

2. Poul Carl Bjerre [1876–1964], Swedish psychiatrist and psychotherapist. It was he who introduced Lou Andreas-Salomé to psychoanalysis and brought her to the Weimar Congress [1911]. He later withdrew from psychoanalysis and in the mid 1930s became a collaborator of Jung's. Bjerre had been guest at the meeting of the Vienna Society on 4 January 1911.

100F

Berggasse 19
20 January 1911

Dear Friend,

A ridiculously hectic period, complicated by an accident of my eldest, who broke a thigh skiing (not a complicated fracture, fortunately taking a normal course),¹ has meant that the reply to your letter has had to be put off for such a long time. I scarcely know now with what I should catch up.

I believe I know Frl. Rosenthal from a brief correspondence with her. If you send me the work, I will read it at once and then make a decision about it. Your Segantini is most welcome. Its position is as follows: The translation of Jones's Hamlet is to appear very soon, followed two months later by a paper on parricide by a Zurich doctor of laws, and then comes your Segantini's turn. I cannot expect Deuticke to accept more than five or six volumes a year.

Dr Bjerre was in Vienna for a week and at first made things difficult for me by his taciturnity and stiffness, but finally I worked my way through to discovering his serious personality and good mind. I advised him to join the Berlin group as a member, and I hope he will do so. Scandinavia is, after all, your natural hinterland.

Have I already told you that I spent Christmas in Munich with Bleuler and then with Jung? No, I certainly have not, my brain is clearly weakening. With Bl. things went well, I was so tired that I acted quite naturally, and that worked. We parted as friends, and he has since joined the Z.[urich] Society. So the schism there has been healed. With Jung I discussed the Congress. As a result I think the date will be changed to the end of September, because of the Americans; and perhaps it really will take place in Lugano. The most important event of the moment, Bl.'s apologia,² is already in your hands. The Zentralblatt would very much like to publish something by you. Juliusburger has done a very good thing with the quotations from Schopenhauer,3 but my originality is obviously on the wane.

My sister-in-law Minna Bernays⁴ is thinking of going to Berlin next week and has promised to see for herself if you and yours are happy in your new home.

Cordial greetings

from your

Freud

1. Martin Freud described this incident (1958: pp. 175ff). Through Freud's intervention Martin, serving in the army at that time, did not come into a military but, rather, into a private hospital, which probably saved his leg from having to be amputated.

2. Bleuler, 1910.

3. Juliusburger, 1911.

4. Minna Bernays [1865–1941], Martha Freud's sister. After the death in 1886 of her fiancé Ignaz Schönberg, a boyhood friend of Freud's, Minna had worked as a companion. At the beginning of 1896, after the birth of Anna Freud, she had moved into the Freud family household, where she remained until her death. She was interested in the subject of psychoanalysis and accompanied Freud on numerous trips.

101A

Berlin
11 February 1911

Dear Professor,

The Segantini manuscript goes off to you together with these lines. I send it to you with a request for your criticism that seems particularly necessary to me this time, as it is a piece of work with some personal complexes behind it. Besides, I would like to have your opinion about a question of layout: Would it be useful to include some of the main pictures, since they are not as generally known as some of the works of Böcklin¹ and other modern painters? I would suggest one of the pictures pertaining to the mother-complex and one of the mystical ones (the wicked mothers). If you are in favour of illustrations, would you kindly discuss this with the publisher?

We had the pleasure of seeing Frl. Bernays twice in our home. I heard from her in more detail about the doings of you and your family. I hope that your patient is as well as one can be after so unpleasant an injury.

You will soon be receiving Frl. Dr Rosenthal's paper; I have spoken to her, and she is in perfect agreement with its publication in the Zentralblatt, as the Schriften are probably too full up for the time being. So you could perhaps save yourself the trouble of reading it and pass the manuscript on direct to Stekel or Adler. Or I could send it direct. Our group is doing splendidly. The day before yesterday Stegmann spoke on asthma, and I spoke about a case of obsessional neurosis. Interest is constant. Next time Koerber is speaking on narcissism.

Bleuler's paper is gratifying on the whole; but the second half is much inferior. I am glad that unity has been re-established in Zurich, at least outwardly. In the last few days I have heard of various things that must have made it very difficult indeed for Bl. to meet us halfway. But now for peace.

At the moment I find myself in a dilemma. The other day I mentioned to a colleague that I had found, in a very striking way, masculine and feminine periods2 in a mild case of circular psychosis. She spoke of this to Fliess, with whom she is friendly, and a few days later told me of Fliess's request that I should visit him. On the one hand, I would not like to be discourteous; on the other, I find it unpleasant to have to force myself to adopt as much reserve as is necessary in this case.

To conclude, a little satyric play from Ziehen's clinic: a demonstration of a case of obsessional neurosis. The patient suffers from the obsessional idea that he must put his hands under women's skirts in the street. Ziehen, to audience: “Gentlemen, we must carefully investigate whether we are dealing with an obsessional idea with sexual content. I shall ask the patient whether he also feels this impulse with older women.” The patient, in answer to the question: “Alas, Professor, even with my own mother and sister!” Thereupon Ziehen: “You see, gentlemen, that there can be nothing sexual at all at work here.” To his assistant: “Note in the case history: Patient suffers from a non-sexual but senseless obsessional idea!”—

With cordial greetings from house to house,

Yours,

Abraham

1. Arnold Böcklin [1827–1901], Swiss painter.

2. Fliess had developed a comprehensive theory about the role of periods of 28 (female) and 23 (male) days, to whose influence he believed the entire organic world to be subjected.

102F

Vienna IX, Berggasse 19
13 February 1911
In haste

Dear Friend,

I am replying by return of post because of what you say about Fliess, and I am taking the liberty of giving you my advice unasked, that is, telling you my attitude in the matter. I cannot see why you should not call on him. In the first place, you will meet a highly remarkable, indeed fascinating man, and on the other hand you will perhaps have an opportunity of coming scientifically closer to the grain of truth that is surely contained in the theory of periodicity, a possibility that is denied to me for personal reasons. Now, he will certainly try to sidetrack you from Ψα (and, as he thinks, from me) and to guide you into his own channel. But I am sure you will not betray both of us to him. You know his complex and are aware that I am the centre of it, and so you will be able to evade it. You know from the outset that he is basically a hard, bad man, which took me many years to discover. His talent is exclusively one of exactitude, for a very long time he had no idea of psychology, at first he accepted everything literally from me, and he will by now, of course, have discovered the opposite of it all. I warn you particularly against his wife.1 Wittily stupid, malicious, a positive hysteric, therefore perversion, not neurosis.

I am eagerly awaiting your post.

Could you not make up your mind to let me use the priceless story about Ziehen in the Centralblatt?² Z[iehen] has no claim to mercy. Please reply by postcard, but without feeling forced.

With cordial greetings to you all,

Yours,

Freud

1. Ida, née Bondy [1869–?]. In his conversations with Marie Bonaparte about his relationship to Fliess, Freud called her a “böses Weib” [“malicious skirt”]—this quote only in the German edition of Freud (1985c [1887–1904]: p. xv)—and maintained that she, “out of jealousy, did everything possible to sow discord between the two friends” (Masson, in ibid.: p. 3).

2. No question mark in original.

103A

Berlin
17 February 1911

Dear Professor,

Many thanks for the letter and the cards.¹ Your information about Fliess was very welcome. I will get in contact with him and exercise the necessary caution.

I got the story about Ziehen recently from our colleague Maier² from Zurich, who was here, visited the clinic, and told the story at our session in the evening. As I was not an ear-witness, I cannot vouch for the wording. I will ask Maier about it once again in writing, and then there will be no more obstacles to its publication.

I see, incidentally, that we have recently taken a somewhat different stand vis-à-vis our opponents. Your “Wild Ψα”,³ then Bleuler's defence, Jung's remarks to Mendel⁴—this means a step forward out of reserve. If only it carries on with such caution, it will help rather than harm.

I had a great deal of trouble translating Dr Rosenthal's manuscript into readable German (she is Russian). It will probably be ready in a few days. I myself now believe that it is best suited for the Centralblatt.

Did you read that Segantini's son Mario was arrested in Berlin for fraud? Another deserted from the Army a few years ago and deserted then shot himself. The third is an idler. Only the daughter seems to be worth anything. It is remarkable that the sons completely lack the father's capacity for sublimation.

With cordial greetings from house to house,

Yours,

Abraham

1. The cards are missing.

2. Hans Wolfgang Maier, m.d. [1882–1945], pupil of Forel and Aschaffenburg; first assistant at the Burghölzli, the staff of which he had joined in 1905. Later Professor of Psychiatry in Zurich, and, from 1927 on, Bleuler's successor as director of the Burghölzli.

3. Freud, 1910k.

4. Mendel had written an “unforgivably impudent” (Jung to Freud, 7 June 1909, Freud & Jung, 1974 [1906–13]: pp. 231–232) review of Chalewsky (1909), to which Jung replied (1910a).

Kurt Mendel [1874–19?], Berlin psychiatrist, editor of the Neurologisches Centralblatt, founded by his father Emanuel. Freud knew Kurt Mendel, and from 1886 on had abstracted the Viennese neurological literature for the Centralblatt.

104F

Vienna IX, Berggasse 19
23 February 1911

Dear Friend,

Your Segantini is fine and beautiful, it goes deep without causing offence, and is probably also discreet. I was very much struck by the similarities of character with Leonardo (anarchism due to an absence of paternal authority, fixation on the mother, influence of the chance events of childhood, but different results because of the death of the mother, jealousy of the brother). On a second reading I shall of course get even greater pleasure from it. The manuscript is now with Deuticke, with whom you should get in touch in order to arrange the matter of the two illustrations, which have naturally been accepted without any difficulty. Your work is being printed at the same time as a legal article by a young Swiss named Storfer, which will be ready before yours because it is shorter.

Things are on the move in the Society here; there have been agitated discussions about Adlerian theories. Adler and Stekel have resigned, and I shall probably have to take over the presidency.¹ Putnam² will certainly have given you pleasure too. In due course I shall be sending you some reprints for distribution. Brill reports that he has founded a branch society in New York with 16 members, of which he is the president.3 The enemies are rather quiet at the moment.

With cordial greetings to you and your family,

your faithfully devoted

Freud

1. On 16 November 1910, Hitschmann had proposed a detailed discussion about Adler's views and their relation to those of Freud. Freud agreed, with the stipulation that Adler himself talk about the relation of masculine protest to the theory of repression (Nunberg & Federn, 1974: p. 59). Adler accepted. The discussions were continued on 8 and 22 February 1911, and ended with Adler's and Stekel's resignation as president and vice-president, respectively, of the Vienna Society. On 1 March, Freud was elected the new president by acclamation. It was further unanimously resolved to thank Adler and Stekel and to inform them that the greatest value was being placed on their continued collaboration, and it was resolved by a majority that the Society would refrain from recognizing the incompatibility between their scientific positions and their functions, which had been cited by Adler and Stekel as grounds for their resignation (ibid.: pp. 178ff).

2. That is, Putnam's article (1910b), which had appeared, in Freud's translation and with a supplementary footnote by Freud (1911j), in the Zentralblatt.

3. Independently of the impending foundation of the American Psychoanalytic Association [on 9 May 1911], Brill had founded the New York Psychoanalytic Society on 12 February 1911.

105A

Berlin
26 February 1911

Dear Professor,

I thank you for the trouble you have taken with my opus, and I am pleased that it could go straight into print. You remark that the work is “discreet” on some points. This is quite true, particularly concerning the question of the homosexual component. There was too little material in this respect. The similarities to Leonardo had struck me right from the beginning; perhaps I could insert a note about this in the proofs.

Now I must tell you about Fliess. I had a very friendly reception. He refrained from any attacks aimed at Vienna. He has closed his mind to the more recent results of Ψα since the conflict but showed great interest in all I told him. I did not get the fascinating impression that you predicted (Fl. may have changed in the last few years), but, nevertheless, I did get the impression of a penetrating and original thinker. In my opinion he lacks greatness in the strict sense of the word. This is also borne out in his scientific work. He proceeds from some valuable ideas; all further work just revolves around the proof of their correctness or on their more exact formulation.—He met me without prejudice, has meanwhile visited me in turn, and I must grant him that he made no attempt to draw me (in the way feared) to his side. I have heard many interesting things from him and am very glad to have made his acquaintance— perhaps the most valuable I could make among Berlin doctors.

I am so sorry for you about the inner conflicts of the Society, the more so since, up to now, everything has been progressing most pleasantly here.—Putnam also pleased me, as did Brill's organization. The whole business is progressing, at any rate. I have been amazed several times recently at how much has already penetrated into wider circles.

This week I am beginning another four-week course, provided that there are people to take part. The practice has been rather lively for quite a long time, so that I am usually busy for eight hours.

I am writing an article on blushing for the Centralblatt.1 I will let you have it soon, together with some short communications.

With cordial greetings, also to your esteemed family,

your devoted

Abraham

1. Probably never published.

106F

Vienna IX, Berggasse 19
3 March 1911

Dear Friend,

I inform you that I have taken over the leadership of the Vienna group again after Adler's and Stekel's resignation. Adler's behaviour was no longer reconcilable with our Ψα interests, he denies the role of the libido, and traces everything back to aggression. The damaging effects of his works will not take long to make themselves felt.

I ask you once again to make the little scene in Ziehen's clinic available for the Centralblatt. It is too priceless.

You must not think Fliess so crude as to betray any intention in the first hour. Unfortunately he is the opposite, sly or, rather, vicious. You will certainly come across his complex. Do not forget that it was through him that both of us came to understand the secret of paranoia (cf. psychosexual differences).¹ What you say about the nature of his work strikes me as remarkably true; I once loved him very much and therefore overlooked a great deal. Above all, beware of his wife.

Stekel's dream book² appeared a few days ago. There will be a great deal in it to be learned from, a great deal to be missed, and a good deal to be criticized.

Let me draw your attention especially to the last issue of the Journal of Abnormal Psychology. Jones3 is correct and understanding, Morton Prince⁴ impudent and stupid, Friedländer⁵—the old pig.

I also thank you and your dear wife for the friendly reception that you gave to my sister-in-law who returned today.

Yours cordially,

Freud

1. Referring to Abraham, 1908[11], Abraham's paper for the meeting in Salzburg, in which he acknowledges his debt to Freud for “many of the ideas” (p. 65). Freud probably alludes to the connection between auto-erotism, delusions of persecution, and megalomania drawn therein (pp. 74–75).

2. Stekel, 1911.

3. Jones, 1911.

4. Prince, 1911.

5. Friedländer, 1911 [1910].

107A

Berlin
9 March 1911

Dear Professor,

Heartfelt thanks for the further information about Fliess, to whom I have not yet spoken again, and also for the Putnam reprints. I hope to get the new publications you write about before long. I have already had part of the Segantini proofs. Deuticke is in touch with the Photographic Union in Munich about the illustrations.

As regards the Ziehen affair, I wrote to Dr Maier at the Burghölzli and received the enclosed letter from him. I cannot say that he is in the wrong. It was fortunate that I wrote to him first, for publication would surely have generated an irritation in Zurich (i.e. the Burghölzli)—after all, the rift has only just been mended. Now we have to pass the story on by word of mouth.

I can hardly regret Adler's resignation. In spite of one's respect for his good qualities, he was certainly not the right man to lead the Vienna Society. His more recent papers are not at all to my liking. It is true that I dare not give a definitive judgement because I cannot detach myself from an antipathy to Adler's style and exposition. There is the danger of rejecting this or that out of indolence, so as not to have to immerse oneself into his work. I do not think, however, that I do him an injustice if I find the “aggressive drive” very one-sided. The giving up of the libido, the neglect of all we have learned about erotogenic zones, auto-erotism, etc., appear to me as a retrograde step. The pleasure principle is lost entirely. On top of that, he relapses into surface psychology, such as “over-sensitivity”, etc. The one-sidedness of his interpretation is very evident to me when he gives an example. The fundamental fact of over-determination is completely neglected, as, for instance, in the note (to the Nuremberg talk) in which he does away with erythrophobia.1 The “masculine protest” seems to me to be a valid point of view in certain cases; I do not, however, find anything basically new in it. I would say that it is an idea that is already contained in your Three Essays (about the masculinity of the libido),² stated exaggeratedly and pushed one-sidedly to its extremes. The “masculine protest” must have its roots in his unconscious. In spite of all these objections, one always finds something valuable, so that one tends to regret that it is all in such a sketchy, fragmentary, and insufficiently explained form.

The practice has been turbulent for some time, almost every day eight analytic hours and a few other things as well, so that I have little time for science. I am thinking of taking a little rest at Easter.—I shall perhaps write to you soon about some—as far as I know, new—results.

We were very pleased with Frl. Bernays's visit, and we had her give us a detailed account of everything concerning your family. With cordial greetings to you and yours, also from my wife,

Yours,

Abraham

1. “In compulsively blushing (ertyhrophobia), for example, the patient reacts to felt or feared disparagement with (male) rage and displeasure. But the reaction is done with female means, with blushing or fear of blushing. And the meaning of the fit is: ‘I am a woman and want to be a man'” (Adler, 1910: p. 89; editor's translation).

2. Freud, 1905d: p. 219.

108F

Vienna IX, Berggasse 19
14 March 1911

Dear Friend,

I am returning Dr Maier's letter herewith. I think you could not have acted otherwise, and if he cannot make up his mind, we have still nothing to reproach him with. He is not very close to us. The delicacy could be mingled with caution. In any case, I am sorry to let the bite go.

Your judgement of Adler coincides completely with mine, and particularly with my judgement before the discussions. Since then, it has become more trenchant; a great deal of confusion is concealed behind his abstraction, he dissimulates a much more far-reaching opposition and shows some fine paranoid traits. Nothing is going to come out of all my Viennese, with the exception of little Rank, who is becoming someone decent and remarkable.¹

I am glad to hear that your practice is doing so well. Your success at your difficult post deserves all respect and reward. I have had a less busy week and am therefore feeling quite refreshed.

With the most cordial greetings,

Yours,

Freud

1. Holograph: “…der etwas Ordentliches wird”.

109A

Berlin W.
9 April 1911

Dear Professor,

You have presumably already heard from Jung about his visit to Berlin.¹ The result for me was that a few days ago I was called in as consultant to a case in the Kraus clinic. I hope that is the beginning of the outward progress of our cause here in the tough North! After Easter I shall try to teach the clinic doctors, privatissime, a little about Ψα. Some of them are certainly interested.

For the Congress in the autumn, after discussion with the members here, I have suggested Weimar, and I hope that you agree and Jung as well. It is favourably situated, that is, it can be reached from both Zurich and Vienna by direct express train without changing (Vienna–Aachen express without overnight journey). We in Berlin would have a slight advantage, it is true, but we would take over the arrangements. The town as such will be congenial for all. I can probably soon make inquiries about a venue for the meetings myself; as far as I know, everything we need is there. If we should make progress in Berlin in the near future, a place so convenient for North Germany could be especially recommended.

Meanwhile I visited Fliess, who referred a woman patient to me for analysis once again. He recommended both analysis and me to the patient in a very nice way. As yet, we have not discussed scientific matters again.

On Wednesday the 12th I am going on holiday for a short time; I am very much in need of rest, as the practice has made extreme demands on me in the last few months. I am going to Bad Schandau near Dresden; on 18 April the Berlin group is meeting in Dresden for a session at our colleague Stegmann's house. The members in Thuringia thus have the opportunity to participate.

I have not yet read Stekel's dream book, but even in advance I find it too voluminous in comparison with the work it is based on. But now I understand why St. in the last Zentralblatt quotes Swoboda's platitude about “brilliant imitative creativity”.

I hope that the differences in the group there have been smoothed out again to some extent.

If you have anything to tell me (about Weimar, for instance, which I shall probably be passing through), my address is Hotel Forsthaus, Bad Schandau a/Elbe (from 12 to 18 April).

With cordial greetings to you and yours,

your devoted

Abraham

1. Between 29 March and ca. 1 April, to the Charité, headed by Friedrich Kraus [1858–1936] (cf. Freud & Jung, 1974 [1906–13], letter of 28 February 1911, and the following ones: pp. 397–413), where Jung found the “whole clinic infected with Ψα” (31 March 1911, ibid.: p. 412).

110F

Vienna
11 April 1911

Dear Friend,

I do not begrudge you your well-earned leave. The prospects opening up in Berlin are very fine. It was an extraordinary achievement on your part to base your existence on representing Ψα in Berlin.

Weimar suits me very well, and there is also much sympathy for it in the Vienna group. Stekel's dream book is in some respects shameful for us, although it contains much that is new. I shall give an actually unfavourable criticism of it to the Jahrbuch. He is unfortunately ineducable. In Vienna we have a rather unpleasant situation, and a few quite crazy members.

You will have been informed about what has recently been going on in the Association (America, Munich¹) through Jung's visit. My work on paranoia, which takes up again your ‘Ψsexual Differences”, is already printed. If you wish, I can send you proofs long before the Jahrbuch comes out.

I am meeting Ferenczi in Bozen for Easter.²

With cordial greetings to you and your dear wife,

Yours,

Freud

1. The founding of the New York branch society [on 12 February 1911], and the impending founding of the Munich [on 1 May] and the American [on 9 May] societies.

2. Freud and Ferenczi spent 16 and 17 April together in Bolzano in South Tyrol.

111A

Berlin
14 May 1911

Dear Professor,

You congratulated me four weeks ago on Segantini's birth, but I did not receive the copies until a few days ago; you will meanwhile have received one. Many thanks for the proofs. Unfortunately, I have not yet found the time to read the two papers at leisure, but even a cursory reading has given me particular pleasure. The postulation of the two principles1 is unusually illuminating and helpful; it seems indispensable to me for the understanding of the development of the libido. I should like to go into it in greater detail once I have read the paper again.

You have succeeded wonderfully well in the Schreber analysis and in further developing the theory of paranoia. There is a great deal in this paper that I would like to discuss with you in greater detail. Could you possibly reserve some time for me in the autumn just before or after the Congress? So much has accumulated that is difficult to discuss in letters.—I must thank you for the incidental profit of pleasure I have gained from several of your comments!

For a short time I have been treating the lady—Frl. Eibenschütz— whom you so very kindly referred to me. Her strange fear of speaking has a very interesting aetiology. After my return from the short Easter holidays the practice has increased again very rapidly; analyses keep me busy from morning to evening.

If your time permits, I should like to ask you to comment briefly on a passage in the Three Essays, namely on the last paragraph of the 2nd essay (“The same pathways” etc.).² I was questioned about it a short while ago but was unable to give a satisfactory reply.

With cordial greetings from house to house,

your devoted

Karl Abraham

1. Freud, 1911b.

2. Freud, 1905d: p. 206.

112F

Vienna IX, Berggasse 19
18 May 1911

Dear Friend,

It is true that I received the first copy of your Segantini weeks ago. Opinions of your work in my immediate circle are extremely appreciative, and I hope that our opponents will also have to speak of it with respect.

I shall be very glad indeed to meet you for an undisturbed private meeting before or after the Congress, and look forward very much to the rare opportunity. You would make things much easier for me if you would prefer the later of the two possible dates for [the Congress in] Weimar; I could then spend the day before with you and afterwards go to Zurich for the inspection I have had in mind for a long time. For highly private family reasons 16 September is a very inconvenient, nearly impossible date for me,1 though I am loath to arrange the date of the Congress according to my personal requirements.

The passage in the Sexual Theory cannot but sound oracular, because no clear idea hides behind it, only a hypothesis. There are ways, unknown in their nature, in which sexual processes exercise an influence on digestion, blood formation, etc. The disturbing influences of sexuality travel by them, and thus probably the conducive and other usable influences normally travel by them too. You see, I can really give you only a paraphrase of the dawning suspicion.

With cordial greetings and many good wishes to your wife and children,

your most faithfully devoted

Freud

1. Referring to the Freuds' twenty-fifth wedding anniversary on 14 September.

113A

Berlin
28 August 1911

Dear Professor,

Many thanks for your lines from Klobenstein!¹ We have been back here for eight days after a lovely holiday in Denmark; business is already in full swing, almost more than one would wish for in this heat.

I am sending you today a prospectus of our Weimar headquarters; it looks as though we shall be well received there. If you have special requirements with regard to the room, please let me know. I am delighted that you are keeping the day after the Congress for me.

I have announced a talk on the psychosexual basis of agitated and depressive states,² and I believe I shall be able to present some ideas that are new, or at any rate not yet published.—My Segantini has caused some stir. Servaes³ has already written to me unfavourably about it and notified me at the same time of an article that has appeared in the Frankfurter Zeitung, of which he promised me a reprint. The article appeared, but not the reprint. In another paper a local colleague expressed violent indignation and called on all the neurological saints. And a poem, Wissenschaft und Stumpfsinn [Science and Stupidity], appeared in the Jugend.4

Otherwise, the summer's peace has only been interrupted by seven new papers by Jones. I will not disturb yours any further. Your kind regards and those of Dr Ferenczi are most cordially reciprocated by my wife and myself,

Yours,

Karl Abraham

1. Missing. On 9 July, Freud had gone to Karlsbad and from there, around 1 August, to Klobenstein near Bolzano, where he had joined his wife. Ferenczi had joined the party on 20 August for a fortnight.

2. Abraham, 1911[26].

3. Franz Theodor Hubert Servaes [1862–1947], German writer, biographer of Segantini (Servaes, 1907).

4. Munich weekly [1896–1940], which gave the Jugendstil [art nouveau] its name.

114F

Klobenstein
30 August 1911

Dear Friend,

Many thanks for your letter and enclosure. If I am to express a wish, it would be for a room with bathroom.

I have followed the fortunes of your Segantini with interest. You know, it is very much appreciated in our circles and bought in quantity at Deuticke's. I have read the article by Servaes. If you do not know it, you have missed nothing. Exactly what anyone could have made up for himself. People feel the uneasiness that arises from the dissolution of sublimations and make us pay for it.

Each of your greetings evokes for my family a pleasant memory of your home and your wife. They send their thanks.

I am thinking—if possible—of leaving others to do the talking at the Congress. I have nothing actually ready to be said.

With cordial greetings and looking forward to seeing you again,

your faithfully devoted

Freud

115A

Berlin
12 September 1911

Dear Professor,

Heartfelt thanks for your letter! I have informed the hotel of your wish.

Up to now about 35 rooms have been booked; but the number of participants will probably be substantially larger. Jung wrote to me recently that there was a shortage of papers. This is probably connected with the fact that participation from Vienna is so weak. For at the previous congresses the Viennese have always provided an important contribution to the programme.

If only because of this shortage, you, dear Professor, will surely not keep to your intention of remaining silent. But you would not be so cruel as to disappoint the participants in their greatest expectation.

I am therefore keeping the 23rd free and am much looking forward to this day. As far as I can see, I shall arrive in Weimar at noon on the 20th.1

With cordial greetings—also from my wife—to you and yours.

Yours,

Karl Abraham

 

1. Because Ferenczi had to go back to Budapest to work, Freud went alone to Zurich in the middle of September and spent three days at Jung's house in Küsnacht, from where he continued on—probably in the company of Putnam, Jung and his wife—to the Third International Psychoanalytic Congress in Weimar [21–22 September]. There Freud presented a brief postscript to the Schreber case (1912a), and Abraham gave the announced talk on manic-depressive psychosis (1911 [26]); these and the other lectures were abstracted by Otto Rank for the Zentralblatt (1911, 2: 100–105). Jung and Riklin were re-elected by acclamation to their posts as President and Secretary, respectively, of the IPA, and the Korrespondenzblatt, which had been published independently up to then, was incorporated into the Zentralblatt. Furthermore, the American Psychoanalytic Association was recognized as a branch society of the IPA, along with the New York Society. After the Congress, Freud remained briefly in Weimar to be able to talk with Abraham.

116A

Berlin
29 October 1911

Dear Professor,

I have not written to you since Weimar. You will see from the enclosure¹ that since then there has been a conflict within our group. Hirschfeld declared his resignation and has stuck to his decision in spite of all attempts at persuasion. At his request, I am sending you his letter. It is a question of resistances that link up with an external cause (Jung's behaviour towards him2), but this is definitely not their source. At a lengthy members' meeting, during which Weimar was discussed, he displayed an ignorance about Ψα that was outright shocking. It is true that something completely different had originally made him join us. It was most probably only the emphasis on sexuality that made analysis attractive to him, especially at a time when his own sex research met with hostility. Basically, Hirschfeld's defection is no loss to us, for the work of our group it is, rather, a gain. On the other hand, I regret his decision for personal reasons. The Congress aroused much irritation also in Koerber and Juliusburger, but this has virtually died down by now. In order to prevent our meetings this winter from becoming too superficial, I have suggested, and won through, that we all work through the Three Essays in the form of reports and discussions.

Despite these unpleasantnesses, I recall the days in Weimar with great pleasure. I have followed up the private discussion we had on the last day and found out a number of interesting facts about totem animals.³ I shall report when my observations are more complete. I have sent two small communications to Stekel for the Zentralblatt.⁴ Now I am occupied with the finishing strokes on my Weimar paper, and this will soon follow. After that, a little essay on a strange ceremonial⁵ is to come: women who every evening before going to bed dress up as brides— brides of death. I could analyse such a case in detail and have a second quite analogous case.—I have undertaken one issue of a new series called Beiträge zur Forensischen Medizin [Contributions to Forensic Medicine]. It is to be entitled “The Child's Instinctual Life and Its Relation to Delinquency”. Later sometime about other plans that were furthered by the hours I spent with you!

I was gratified to hear that our third journal will not have the title originally intended.⁶ I am eager to see it.—Bleuler's Dementia Praecox,⁷ which I read recently, is as contradictory as the man himself. In many ways the book is excellent; yet, at the same time, it contains half-truths like those that abounded in his Weimar paper.

I hope you have not taken the toothache back with you to Vienna and that you and your family are enjoying the best of health. Please give them all most cordial greetings from myself and my wife.

Herr Schönlank, whom you referred to me in the summer, has not yet been to me, whereas his son is very keen and is making good progress. It is still rather quiet in the practice. I hope it will become more lively in November.

With the most cordial greetings,

your devoted

Abraham

1. A (missing) letter of Hirschfeld's.

2. It seems that Jung had objected to Hirschfeld's homosexuality.

3. Evidently, Freud had talked to Abraham about the ideas that were to lead to Totem and Taboo (Freud, 1912–13a). First hints of this project are found in letters to Ferenczi of 21 May 1911 and 20 July 1911 (Freud & Ferenczi, 1992: pp. 281, 296).

4. Abraham, 1911[28], 1911[29].

5. Abraham, 1912[32].

6. This refers to a plan for a new psychoanalytic journal, devoted to non-medical topics. Several names were under discussion—among them, still on 13 November, “Psyche” (Freud & Ferenczi, 1992: p. 310). It was finally called Imago, Zeitschrift für Anwendung der Psychoanalyse auf die Geisteswissenschaften, edited by Otto Rank and Hanns Sachs under the chief-editorship of Freud. The first issue appeared in 1912 with Hugo Heller.

7. Bleuler, 1911.

117F

Vienna IX, Berggasse 19
2 November 1911

Dear Friend,

I too remember fondly the beautiful days and face a relatively unsatisfactory present. The practice is not as full as it was last year, I can still pass on very little. To begin with Herr Schönlank cancelled, as you know; so he has not yet translated his motives into action. It is to our great detriment that we have no Ψα-led institution here in which I could place all four assistants and train new ones. But Vienna is not the ground on which anything can be done.

What gave me most pleasure in your letter were the numerous germs of works, some of which you trace back directly to Weimar. I too am using a period of relative leisure to go more deeply into the work I mentioned to you.¹ I already have the major results beforehand, but reading and collecting in order to provide proof for them is very tedious, and the end is not in sight for some time to come. Anything in the nature of a pleasure gain can only arise at the stage of final shaping, and God alone knows when I shall be able to get to that.

To maintain the parallel still further, let me tell you that I have completed the purge of the Society and sent Adler's seven followers packing after him.² The decrease in numbers is of no importance, work will be much easier now, but, with the single exception of Rank, I have no one here in whom I can take complete pleasure. Perhaps Sachs,³ the second editor of the still unborn journal, will rise to the occasion. My spirits have not been improved by the fact that my offer to publish it has been rejected in three (actually, four) quarters. Perhaps it will work out with our member Heller⁴ now.

Hirschfeld's resignation is really no loss. His personality is not pre-possessing and his receptivity equals zero. In your difficult position, however, I would have rather you had additions. I shall write H. a few friendly lines. I enclose his letter. I hope our correspondence will be able to deal with more pleasant things in the course of this year.—My tooth is forgotten, it was annoying that it took so much out of me in both Zurich and Weimar. In the hope that you and your little family are very well,

your cordially devoted

Freud

1. Freud, 1912–13.

2. Freud had written to Bergmann, the publisher of the Zentralblatt, that the latter would have to choose between Adler and himself. Bergmann brought this letter to Adler's attention, whereupon Adler drafted a declaration in which he announced his resignation from the Editorship (Zentralblatt, 1910–11, 1: 433). “I have finally [in original: ‘endlessly' (endlos, instead of endlich)] got rid of Adler”, Freud had written to Jung on 15 June (Freud & Jung, 1974 [1906–13]: p. 428). David Bach, Stefan von Maday, and Baron Franz von Hye also left the Society with Adler. On 20 June 1911, Karl Furtmüller, Margarete Hilferding, Franz and Gustav Grüner, Paul Klemperer, David Oppenheim, and Josef Friedjung wrote a declaration in which they termed Adler's resignation as an “out-and-out provocation” and condoned his actions; but they further expressed the wish to remain “diligent members” of the Society (Handlbauer, 1990: p. 140). At the special general meeting of 11 October it was decided, however, to declare that memberships both in the Society for Free Psychoanalytic Investigation, which had been founded in the interim by Adler, and in the Psychoanalytic Society were incompatible, whereupon the aforementioned—with the exception of Friedjung—announced their resignations (Nunberg & Federn, 1974: pp. 281–283).

3. Hanns Sachs [1881–1947], Doctor of Laws, from October 1910 on member of the Vienna Society. In 1912 he, along with Rank, became editor of the newly founded Imago. He was a member of the Secret Committee and a training analyst at the Berlin Institute [1920–32]. In 1932 Sachs emigrated to Boston, Massachusetts, where he became a prominent but somewhat isolated representative of non-medical analysis. Sachs was one of the first to become interested in the application of psychoanalysis to the humanities. (Cf. Moellenhoff, 1966.)

4. See letter 20F, 16 February 1908, n. 5.

118A

Berlin
5 December 1911

Dear Professor,

The peace of Christmas is letting me carry out the long-desired intention of writing to you. First of all I can answer your news with similar ones in turn. Our little group has once again suffered two “losses”. At my request to pay the increased yearly contribution, Warda and Strohmayer promptly left. I cannot say that our scientific life would be affected by it. Despite all personal difficulties—for example, Juliusburger has sulked in the background since the Congress—it seems to me to be better than before. Actually there are only five of us, i.e. Eitingon, Koerber, Stegmann, and myself and recently a very intelligent young woman doctor, Dr Horney,1 whom I cured of fairly severe hysteria two years ago. She is very zealous, and as soon as she is familiar enough with the work, she will set herself up as an analyst. What I need is someone who does not remain purely receptive. Berlin is an all too sterile ground. Ziehen's impending retirement will also scarcely change things, for every successor will also take a refractory attitude. A little praise must be given to Kraus's intern clinic, several doctors of which are taking at least a sympathetic interest, as they come to our meetings. I hear favourable news rather from non-medical circles. I know that the Director of the National Gallery here and his co-workers have completely accepted my Segantini. At present there is a very lively interest there in your Leonardo. Among teachers and lawyers the interest is also clearly increasing. A few evenings ago, at the invitation of the Russian Medical Association (= Russian doctors who are staying here for further training) I spoke on “The Practice of Ψα” in front of a fairly large and very attentive audience.

The new journal, as Rank wrote me, will surely come into being. This undertaking is very much to my liking. I am preparing a work that is in a line with your present interests; but I should prefer not to say anything about it until I know whether I can carry it through successfully.

The actual progress of our research will for the moment have to make up for our poor success outside. I would wish the coming year to bring you very much pleasure in that sphere at least. The rest will follow; there can be no doubt that everywhere things are in a ferment. Incidentally—my good wishes for you and yours are not only for psychoanalysis.

One more question: could Reik's dissertation on Flaubert, parts of which I read in “Pan”,² not appear in the Schriften zur angewandten Seelenkunde?

With many cordial greetings—also from my wife—to you and your house,

Yours,

Abraham

1. Karen Horney, née Danielsen [1885–1952]. She attended a secondary school in Hamburg, studied medicine in Freiburg and Göttingen [1906–09], then moved to Berlin to complete the final year of medical school at the Charité. She began analysis with Abraham at some time early in 1910 and continued it until the summer of 1910; she soon became a member of the Berlin Society. In 1920 she was a founding member of the Berlin Institute and the first woman to teach there. She also was a member of the Berlin education committee from its inception, and of the education committee of the IPA [1928]. Her second analysis was with Hanns Sachs. In 1932 she left Germany for Chicago, becoming associate director of the newly formed Institute for Psychoanalysis (Franz Alexander) [1932–34]. In 1934 she moved to New York [1934–52] and became a member of the Society there and a popular teacher at the New School for Social Research, building a following of her own. She had regular contact with Harry Stack Sullivan, Clara Thompson, and William V. Silverberg. Her books The Neurotic Personality of Our Time (1937) and New Ways in Psychoanalysis (1939) unleashed a storm of controversy, and in 1941, on the instigation of Lawrence Kubie and Gregory Zilboorg, the education committee voted that her status should be changed from that of instructor to lecturer. Together with Harmon Ephron, Sarah Kelman, Bernard Robbins, and Clara Thompson, she resigned from the New York Society, causing the first split in American psychoanalysis. She founded the Association for the Advancement of Psychoanalysis, including Thompson, Erich Fromm, Sullivan, and Silverberg; within two years, the AAP itself split, and Fromm, Thompson, Sullivan, and Janet Rioch left to found the William White Institute in New York City. Horney is a prominent exponent of so-called neo-analysis; she is best known for her groundbreaking papers on female psychology, making her perhaps the first critic of Freud's views on femininity. (Cf. Quinn, 1987.)

2. Reik, 1911; the dissertation appeared as Reik, 1912. Shortly before, he had been elected to membership of the Vienna Society (15 November, Nunberg & Federn, 1974: pp. 310–319). Theodor Reik [1888–1969] was born in Vienna and studied psychology, German, and French literature there. In 1914/15 he underwent a—cost-free—training analysis with Karl Abraham. In 1915 he became Rank's successor as Secretary of the Vienna Society and retained this function until he moved to Berlin in 1928. In 1934 he emigrated to Holland, and in 1938 to New York, where, as a non-medical analyst, he was “strongly admonished” by the Psychoanalytic Society there “against practising, or rather forbidden to practise, psychoanalysis” (Reik, 1974: p. 656). Reik worked as an analyst just the same, and in 1948 he founded his own group, the National Psychological Association for Psychoanalysis.