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Göttingen, 15 March 1916
Dear Professor,
Thank you very much for thinking of me and for sending the three offprints.60 The two on the ‘Unconscious’ are at the same time a kind reply to the letter I wrote after their publication, but really only to the technical part of that letter; you must also send
me some news in reply to the enquiry about yourself and your family, and I know you will do this. Because nowadays, sad to say, such enquiries can no longer be made with the light-hearted confidence with which, however unjustifiably, they for the most part used to be. But according to your last letter there was for the time being a more reassuring state of affairs for both your sons; may this still be so!
With reference to your ‘A Case of Paranoia Running Counter to the Psycho-Analytic Theory of the Disease’ I am going to begin at the end and express my delight at your terminological observation.61 Is it not very characteristic of Jung to want to compress far too much into a word, just as he does with the libido concept? For all misunderstanding about the ‘actual conflict’ of the neuroses and the ostensible need to treat only this conflict is connected with the fact that he interprets ‘rigidity’ in its widest practical sense, instead of in the specialized sense of‘being fixated’, and for this very reason the essential feature in the situation, i.e., the relationship to the past, is omitted. The same applies to his concept of reality, in that he does not restrict himself to the sexual reality which is meant by the phrase—as Dr. Ferenczi has pointed out very well in the Fahrbuch.62
In your reported case of paranoia63 it is fine to see phantasy being allowed some scope for once—please forgive this psycho-analytic sin, but it is so good to see you playing with ideas, and indeed it would be nice to see it continuing for a few more pages. Involuntarily one feels oneself into the situation. And this is how it seemed to me: after the girl had more or less attained heterosexual lov