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.
Internationale Zeitschrift für Ärztliche Psychoanalyse
Budapest, May 3, 1913
Dear Professor,
Our correspondence has definitely been diminishing in frequency and directness for some time. My illness is responsible for this; I obviously hate to bother you with information about my physical condition when we have for so many years either carried on an objective-scientific exchange of ideas or in our letters worked on eradicating certain psychic hindrances which have stood in the way of my work. But this time I will overcome the resistance and summarize the essentials of my condition.—The operation on my nose has not brought about any significant improvement.—Breathing through my nose is still impeded at times; warmth is especially harmful to me. When I get warm, a kind of “capillary paralysis” of my skin ensues. The veins in my arms swell up, the nasal turbinate bones disrupt my breathing. All that seems to go together with the blockages in my colon, because the distension of my belly, which often occurs, may produce the same vasomotor phenomena.—Every night I wake up around 3:30-4 o'clock with heart palpitations, which soon abate after the expulsion of intestinal gases; but usually I can't go to sleep anymore afterwards, and then I am tired during the day and incapable of spontaneous work. I admit that all these symptoms overly occupy my attention and are certainly in part of a hypochondriacal nature.—As far as my psychic hygiene is concerned, the matter is as follows: I repeatedly tried to satisfy my erotic needs