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Budapest, February 16, 1910
VII., Erzsébet-körút 54
Dear Professor,
I will prove myself worthy of your very quick and detailed answer by at least replying promptly; in terms of content, my letters must turn out much more meager for numerous reasons.
The crooked folding of the letter is revealed right at the end of the first page, where you say that Sachs's criticism was more autoerotic, “without [proper] consideration of the …”—the rest is missing; you forgot this “transference” onto the next page; resistances must have prevailed there. I must tell you that I am and have always been in complete agreement with the insight that the libido in neurotics remains fixated on the nuclear complexes. This fixation, however, holds true primarily for the unconscious. In the conscious, the neurotic flees from these primal conflicts, that is, from their too strong libidinal cathexis; so, in lieu of that, he is forced to encounter all inwardly or outwardly associable objects with exaggerated interest. In the ucs. all this interest naturally applies to the original objects. In all situations that make possible the pure sublimation of the libido [reverence for father, mother, attending the sickbed of parents, etc.]1 they also remain consciously fixated on their parents; they remain dependent children for their whole lives. But as such, they cannot live out their sexuality; the childlike-parental relations do not suffice for that. The quantity of libido not brought to bear in this manner is appended as a complex-fleeing affect to the introjectable things of the outside world. In this way I understand my statement about the broadening of the circle of interest, under which I also naturally mean the exaggeratedness of the negative affects.—If that can't be read out of my paper, then it is solely a matter of the inadequacy of the presentation. Please also share this with Dr. Sachs when you get the chance, so that this contradiction, which is only apparent, may disappear.
The man from Duna-Pe