Letters to the Editor

Although not addressed to the Bulletin as such, we think the following letter from Dr. Rickman to Dr. Menninger of sufficient interest to be published.

March 5, 1948.

Dear Dr. Menninger,

The news of Brill's death arrived just before the meeting of the Psycho-Analytical Society, and we were much moved by it. Though only a few of us had met him in person all of us have been many times grateful to him for his translations of Freud's books, to some of us he was the means by which we could get first contact with psycho-analysis at all.

And what a genial fellow he was. I only saw him once or twice, and he combined shrewdness and warmth-qualities that don't often go together. You all in America had something to be proud of in having such a leader among you and we in the British Society feel deeply with you in your loss.

Congresses of Psycho-Analysis won't be the same without him, not that he attended so many of them, if my memory serves me aright, but he was a Congress in himself and when he wasn't present he was there in the background — or so it seemed to me — an urbane mediating figure.

It is a pity that there cannot be an International Congress of Psycho-Analysis this year (they are such useful occasions for meeting people) but such gatherings take a long time to prepare and there has been so long delay in getting started that it is not organized. However, we in this country console ourselves that many of our psycho-analytical colleagues will be coming to the Conference on Mental Health and the British Society is going to hold a Conver-possible at this relatively short notice to get one sazione with no set speeches and certainly no read papers on Thursday, August 12th, and we are looking forward to the gathering.

This is the first occasion on which I have written to you in an official capacity; may I say that in this, as in our meeting during the war, I look forward to close interchange between your country and ours.

With kind regards,

Yours sincerely,
John Rickman, Preside