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7 Oct. 17
Vienna IX, Berggasse 19
Dear Frau Andreas
Recently a short book by Dr. Groddeck89 has appeared in Baden-Baden, Psychische Bedingtheit und psychoanalytische Behandlung organischer Leiden ( S. Hirzel, Leipzig, 1917), which I beg you to read. (I have only one copy, which is destined for the reviewer.) It will very much interest you, although the author's tendency to exaggeration and simplification and a certain element of mysticism are obvious enough. As you know, in my work I have remorselessly sacrificed everything—unity, completeness, the feeling of intellectual satisfaction—to the one consideration of accuracy. Groddeck goes further and comes upon things which doubtless have a claim to be taken into account. His ‘Id’ is more than our Ucs; it is not clearly differentiated by him, but there really is something in what he says. And whatever was attractive about Adler's ego psychology is to be found here too. Are you not going to make a fresh attempt to send us your offprints?
With cordial greetings,
Yours,
Freud
The work in question deals with the problem of the capacity for illness and the ‘individual, local or temporal disposition’ towards it. Groddeck proceeds from a case of tonsilitis and the possibility of influencing it through psycho-analytically acquired knowledge of origin and disposition.
Groddeck's term Es (Id) for the comprehensive Unconscious (already used by Nietzsche) was later adopted by Freud. His book Der gesunde und der kranke Mensch (Man Sane and Pathological) appeared in 1913. In her distress at the news of Rilke's last illness Lou A.-S. tried to obtain Groddeck's advice.