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Budapest, February 7, 1911
VII., Erzsébet-körút 54
Dear Professor,
My last stay in Vienna has left behind particularly pleasant memory traces in me. I found you mentally and physically fresh and active, the most burning scientific controversies on the way to a solution; I found myself objective, free from complex inhibitions. The diagnosis that you made—in the way of a supposition—about Elma Pálos, did, to be sure, have a rather depressing effect. But afterwards I was able to determine that two things were especially to blame for this depression. First, the unjustified effect that the words “dementia praecox” had on me as a result of its associative connection with severe cases of this kind. Second, I allowed myself to be surprised by your diagnosis, which should have warned me of the fact that I—attuned part and parcel to neuroses as I am—must have overlooked something in the psychiatric sphere. I think that that can only be helped by an—at least temporary—visit to a psychiatric ward.
“L'autre danger” that the psychoanalyst is subject to (at least I found myself inclined to it) is that, in lovingly going into the determinants of a neurosis, one finds them, so to speak justified. One is actually right in doing so: everything that exists is eo ipso—from a philosophical point of view—justified in existing. The only thing is that this all too forgiving understanding can make one too inclined to take a position in favor of the patient (i.e., in favor of fantasy) and against those close to him (i.e., reality).
Besides monitoring the countertransference, one must therefore also pay heed to this “being induced” by the patients. (Perhaps it is only a question here of a form of countertransference.)
Jung confirmed his receipt of my—-1
The rest of the letter is missing.