Letter from Sigmund Freud to Georg Groddeck, October 28, 1917

Vienna, October 28, 1917

Dear Colleague,

I acknowledge receipt of the offprints of your paper which I

shall circulate in the group. Ferenczi has already sent in his report on it.

Your interesting remark16 on the analysis of Rosmersholm17 has prompted me to reread the play and discuss it with my only assistant at the moment, Dr. Sachs18. We agree that we cannot give in to you. Everything seems to speak against the notion that Rebecca West's confession is fictitious. Sachs believes that this would cut off the play's vital nerve. I believe that the honest excitement of the passage where she explains how one is pushed further and further against one's will in such a way speaks against your assumption. To get Rosmer over the bridge is a symbol of an aim and not in itself an aim for which one might give one's life. It is merely meant to imply that he brushes aside his wife's suicide. His impotence can certainly be established, yet Ibsen did not bring it up again, did not make it the centre of his play.

Today I saw a lady of 44 who wanted psychiatric treatment, yet I had to diagnose multiple sclerosis (neuritis in the past, bladder trouble …). I have sent her away, yet I am now asking you whether you could take on a case like this in which there is strong evidence of a psychological influence.

With kind regards Freud