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[Königsberg] 25.11.24
Dear Professor,
And now I am going to write once again to you yourself, in order to tell you about Königsberg. I have often meant to do so, because it seemed to me that you should know what I am really doing here. After our recent exchange of letters it turned out that the few analysands of mine who were seriously ill detained me here beyond the time planned, and I received from my patient husband the assurance that I could stay till the spring. Subsequently I succeeded too in finding board and lodging better suited to the cold. The slow but positive progress I made with my patients is the thing that made the winter really rewarding for me. In this connection it is not so much the natural joy in the curative process itself as the refreshing, gratifying, rejuvenating effect of the deep and continuous preoccupation with this work. For me, that goes on increasing, with every case so to speak. It always seems to me that giving and taking are nowhere so identical as in psycho-analysis. So when I am feeling well and in good shape I do not find even many hours of analysis too exhausting a task.
As for the doctors' training analyses I am still looking out for a ‘particularly suitable’ subject. There were clever people among them, who however suffered from a mountain of prejudices, so that half the time was spent in trying to remove the latter. In other cases Professor Bruns interfered with my work by taking up all their free periods, but I can tell you about that better when I see you. Then the longer I stayed, the more discussions took place, which I at first avoided, because they took up so much time, but whose usefulness I then recognized. There were some doctors who had acquired a certain ‘interest’ in psycho-analysis from reading, but who gaily rushed in where angels fear to tread; and to prevent this my most important aim was to ‘interest’ them really and truly in the subject in such a way that they would keep off it in future. Among them are some w