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17.2.1918
Vienna IX, Berggasse 19
Dear Frau Andreas
Your letter (of 24.1.) which arrived yesterday was as always a little ‘treat’.* I congratulate you on the therapeutic success in the case of your little friend and urge you to remain satisfied with what you have achieved. The inaccessibility of the child naturally corresponds exactly to its narcissism. You stress very rightly what people are so apt to forget in life and what has recently been obscured by the theories of Jung—namely, to what extent the child is already a finished product by the time he is confronted with life, let alone with the doctor. In your case, I believe, the pedagogic influence was further prevented by the fact that you put yourself on a level with her—which from the therapeutic point of view was very skilful. The cure along with the probable renunciation of the instinctual suppression probably followed the maxim: if the mother (substitute) can do it, so can I. However, in education as in analysis one partner must be the superior and the unassailable. I also found it fascinating that your experience confirms the view that success means the end of analysis and of further developments. As long as man suffers, he can still achieve something.
Yesterday I received your Letters to a Boy. When I have read them they will start their round to daughters and female patients. A very gratifying work by Dr. Ernst Simmel,99 Kriegsneurosen und psychisches