The following letters were sent to Herbert Gaskill by Mrs. Dorothy Burlingham and Dr. Alexander Mitscherlich in response to Dr. Gaskill's letter announcing their election to Honorary Membership.
Dear Dr. Gaskill,
It is a common form of wishfulfilment to imagine special honours being conferred on one, but I certainly never imagined becoming a member of the American Psychoanalytic Association, especially since I am without degrees.
I wish that my analytical work had gone further and had made me more worthy. I am moved that the American Association has wished to please me in this way.
Fate was good to me in my relationship to the Freud family. That May 6th—Prof. Freud's birthday—was the date of the meeting to discuss my honorary membership made the event even more special for me.
I wish to thank the member of the American Psychoanalytic Association for electing me as an honorary member.
Yours sincerely,
Dorothy Burlingham
Dear Herb,
There have been few occasions in my life which have given me so much pleasure as my election to Honorary Membership in the American Psychoanalytic Association which you informed me of by your letter of May 28. Let me thank you, as the President, as well as the Committee on Honorary Membership, for this great honor which took me completely by surprise. That added even more to my pleasure.
Of course, I wonder whether I am worthy of this honor, as I know how many excellent and learned members the American Psychoanalytic Association has. Taking this into consideration, I definitely do not stand out as “eminent member.” I am to some extent slightly proud of my attempts at examining the social-political situation in which we live through the eyes of the psychoanalyst. I cannot say that much has come from this, except for the discovery that using the psychoanalytic instruments in the area of social-political processes—in the greater sense as in the individual case—is very appropriate. I think we have to recall that our duties in society are not only those of doctors, but also those of interpreters of our times.
And if we can convince our contemporaries-the decision makers who are particularly involved—that with psychoanalysis an incomparable instrument has been developed for the comprehension of their repetition compulsions and other emotional crises, then the exacting work which was passed on to us by Freud and with which we identify, has not been useless. Even more so as the daily misdeed of the homo destruens are a nightmare which we can barely live with.……
I would like to thank once more the American Psychoanalytic Association. You have elected me into an organisation that stimulates me, in which I feel good, and in whose life I hope that I can often participate.
Cordially,
Alexander Mitscherlich