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Bad Gastein, 29.7.1921
Dear Doctor,
Received further letters to your lady-friend and read them here in my holiday retreat. I particularly like your beginnings and the bits of self-analysis; you are really charming in this. You should sacrifice a few bad habits and change a few details which the analyst would disapprove of. For instance, it is inadvisable to look for deep meanings in the Mosaic story on the creation of man51. It is probably a deliberate priestly distortion of the old myths and thus the only known example of the origin of woman from man instead of the opposite (incestuous) relationship. As to the discussion of menstruation52 the same self-righteous person demands that the complication and layering is taken into account. If a woman answers the man's visit by starting her period early then it is not merely the old sexual desire, but also a strong defence drive which uses the old and now obsolete approach. The exploration of strawberry urtikaria will merely cause offence - without clarifying anything etc.
As a warning example in the distance there is a certain W. Stekel53, too unreasonable and with all very inconstant.
I would like to know what the composition, extent, and aim of the work will be like since I certainly intend to take it on. The fragmentary case histories of patients are crying out for more.
The undersigned will stay here until the 13th of August, and will then go to Seefeld in Tyrol.
With warm regards
Yours Freud