You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
Vienna, November 17, 1911
IX., Berggasse 19
Dear son,
You demand a quick response to your affective letter, and I would like to work a little today. I am pleased about good news that I will share with you later. So, it will come out brief and not tell you much new. Of course I know your “complex ailments” and gladly admit that I would rather have an independent friend, but if you make such difficulties, I have to accept you as a son. Your struggle for liberation doesn't need to take place in such alternation of rebellion and subjugation. I think you are also suffering a little from the fear of complexes that has attached itself to the Jungian complex mythology. Man should not want to eradicate his complexes but rather live in harmony with them; they are the legitimate directors of his behavior in the world.
By the way, you are scientifically on the right track toward making yourself independent. Witness your studies in occultism, which perhaps contain an excess of zeal as a result of this striving. Otherwise, don't be ashamed to be of one mind with me, and don't demand anything more from me personally than I am willing to give. One must be happy when a person, for once, comes to terms with himself on his own. You certainly know the good definition: Whatever you don't have coming to you is Rebach.1
Now the news: Karger2 needs the fourth edition of Everyday Life for 1912. Our Frenchman in Poitiers, who has been silent since January, sent me a letter today, a contribution for the Zentralblatt (homosexuality and paranoia with reference to two authors of the Jahrbuch who are known to you)3 and a reprint of a splendid article in the Gazette des Hopitaux (p. 1845, vol. 84, no. illegible). It is called “Le ‘Rapport affectif’ dans la cure des Psychonévroses.”4 It is right up to date and singles out an essay by Ferenczi. Try to read it right away. I will write to him that he should send you a copy.
Now, good-bye and calm down.
With fatherly regards,
Freud