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We have no knowledge of the background which preceded the letters written by Sigmund Freud to Wilhelm Reich between 1924 and 1930. They were written in reply to messages on various topics which the Master received from Reich. This is how they have come down to us, after having been conserved for almost a century in the Sigmund Freud Archives, which are kept at the Library of Congress in the United States. The current curator is Harold Blum, who succeeded Kurt Eissler. However, even before delving into a historical reflection, an initial reading of the founder of psychoanalysis's words is sufficient to grasp the type of issues that the young Reich was putting to him; mainly evaluations and comments relating to a vast amount of articles, essays, study plans, lines of research and embryonic ideas that Reich submitted to Freud's judgment. In those years the young Reich was writing and publishing papers at a feverish pace. This is clearly evidenced, first of all, by the vast collection of his Early Writings (1920-1925). Other significant examples of his essays during this period are Coitus and the Sexes (1921), The Psychogenic Tic as a Masturbation Equivalent (1925), the volume The Function of the Orgasm (1927) and his essay on methodology entitled Dialectical Materialism and Psychoanalysis (1929). Added to this wealth of written material was a whirl of personal activity, both in the clinical and institutional spheres, within the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society. As may be seen from the letters published here, Freud was prudent in his comments on his young pupil's ideas, while at the same time supporting his youthful enthusiasm.
Alongside these plausibly scientific subjects, Freud's words offer us some insight into the inner workings of the psychoanalytic institution in which Reich was involved. In 1922 he had been appointed as assistant in the psychoanalytic clinic which had recently been set up by Freud himself and, in 1924, he had become director of the Psychoanalytic Tec