Despite some strain in their relationship, by fall of 1931 Freud was still in substantial agreement with Ferenczi regarding his technical and theoretical innovations begun with the publication of “The Elasticity of Psychoanalytic Technique” in 1928 and extended in “The Principle of Relaxation and Neocatharsis,” which Ferenczi presented at the Eleventh International Psychoanalytic Congress in Oxford in August 1929. Historical evidence indicates, however, that Freud abruptly reversed his position after a meeting with Ferenczi in Vienna at the end of October 1931, and what Freud learned then about a specific aspect of Ferenczi's technique strongly influenced his negative assessment of the “Confusion of Tongues” paper, delivered at the Twelfth International Psychoanalytic Congress in Wiesbaden in September 1932.

In a letter to Ferenczi on January 4, 1928, Freud made the following