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Budapest, October 28, 1912
VII., Erzsébet-körút 54
Dear Professor,
I am returning herewith Brill's and Maeder's letters. Also a letter from Putnam, which I answered very cordially,1 and the just-received note from Miss Johnson, which contains a polite rejection of my paper on hypnosis by the Society for Psychical Research. So, English prudery even finds something offensive in very temperate communications.—Do you think that I should give the article to the “Psycho-Medical Society”2 (which is completely unknown to me)? I think it would be foolish to pretend that I am insulted—What we have here is clearly a psychologically understandable symptom of resistance. Or do you think that we should use the occasion to have an educational effect on England?—The question concerns the propaganda of ΨA., and for that reason I don't want to settle it on my own.
My health is now finally much better. The local manifestations (pain, light swelling in the inguinal region) have almost completely gone.* The presumed “incubation period” expires today. The psychic roots of the depression are daily becoming clearer to me. I wanted (ucs.) to restore the old situation of satisfaction with regard to Frau G. by devaluing myself and forcing her to show herself to me in the full goodness and magnitude of soul of the mother who forgives everything. I actually succeeded in this, in part (thanks to Frau G.'s incomparable capacity for sacrifice and kindness of heart). On the other hand, I really want to learn gradually how to renounce some things consciously and to be contented with what I actually have in her.
I want to tell you briefly about the ideas that I shared with you about the individual stages of development of the “organ of reality” (lack of need = omnipotence, magic of gestures, magic of words, sense of reality)—with an indication of their significance for symbolism, hysteria, and obsessional neurosis,4 so that you can refer to them. But first I will wait for a report from you as to whether y