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Budapest, November 3, 1912
VII., Erzsébet-körút 54
Dear Professor,
I am sending you herewith a paper by Jones,1 which he had sent to me (evidently in honest observance of the Vienna accords) through Seif, the translator.—In my personal opinion this work is rather untimely, especially at a time when we have to defend the basic principles of analysis against attack. The separation of the processes that are only psychologically comprehensible from the actual neuroses is precisely one of those basic principles which have proven themselves to be especially valuable. One ought not to abandon this distinction without compelling reason. But Jones does that in this paper, which attempts to blur these distinctions without bringing in new facts to support this step—purely and simply on the basis of unclear speculations and analogies.—Some points are simply erroneous, as is the idea that hysteria, because it has abstinence (impotence) as a consequence, must produce anxiety neurosis along the way. Jones forgets that psychoneurosis is not only a hindrance to normal sexual satisfaction but is itself a form of sexual satisfaction, so only that part of the repressed libido that cannot gain expression in psychoneurotic symptoms must be transformed into anxiety.—You (and not Stekel) have already emphasized the other instance (in which a psychoneurosis can be built up around the nucleus of anxiety). But one should not always belabor the marginal cases that show the differences in a blurred fashion, but rather place the emphasis on the pure cases, from which one can learn the essence of the symptomatology in question.—Jung and Maeder also forgot the real meaning of the dream inasmuch as, in some dreams, the preconscious, in other words, the tendency to awaken, plays a large role.—Yesterday Jones wrote me a card; he is evidently awaiting a critique of his paper from me. Would you please give me your view about Jones's paper and about the way in which I should respond to him?
I, too, believe