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Vienna, March 18, 1912
IX., Berggasse 19
Dear friend,
Your hypochondria structure is very respectable. I am prepared to discuss it at Easter. What I am writing today is only the confession of my stand-point up to now: I have always felt the darkness in the question of hypochondria to be a great disgrace to our efforts but have come up with nothing but suppositions. The problem seemed to me to be: characterization by means of a particular organ source or a particular process. And, with a view toward obsessional neurosis, I opted for the latter, while you choose the former. With regard to the process, I thought of hypochondria as the third actual neurosis and the somatic basis for paraphrenia, as anxiety neurosis is for hysteria. So I drew the erogenous contributions of the organs, which are annexed to the ego rather than to the libido, but with negative sign, but nothing consistent has come out of this, and I don't want to force anything that doesn't seem ready.
If it's all right with you, let's consider the island of Arbe for our Easter trip. Perhaps you can inquire about the connections that must come out of Fiume. I will do the same here. I already know Lussin, but it was not very interesting.
Things have come to a total halt with Elma; I think I know where, in narcissism. What she had earlier is naturally not lost, but definitively taken care of, as is evidenced by her changed state. A solution to the new snag could arrive any day, but … Easter is near, and I don't want to keep her over Easter; I also have three new prospective patients for later on.
Today the clean proofs of Imago arrived, and this week we are still awaiting the publication of the volume, which we want to celebrate with