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,
Sunday, September, 19231
Dear Professor,
Most cordial greetings from me as well on the occasion of your return home from the wonderful city of the Romans. Again and again in the last few weeks I was reminded of the beautiful time when we were able to visit the holy places together2 (I must admit that I have a kind of religious sensitivity when it comes to the ancient world). I count those days among the most beautiful of my life and gratefully think of the incomparable guide that you were for me.
I plunged head over heels into work. The cases are extremely interesting from a scientific viewpoint, especially since I am occupied with testing the Rankian ideas (in my practice). I find that one can put more trust in his points of view than we were inclined to in the first instance, and that major theoretical and technical difficulties can be solved with ease if one decides always to invoke the aftereffects of the birth trauma again and again as an explanation. To be sure, it remains a great and interesting problem to put the unshakable facts of the theory of neuroses in context with it.
But no matter how much, as you see, the work stimulates me intellectually, the less satisfying it is materially, since this time there is no foreigner with me. At the same time, the private burdens and those imposed by the state become heavier and heavier. Political conditions have improved here somewhat,3 so that we can also begin gradually to appear again in public with psychoanalysis. I had the festschrift issue sent to the Budapest publishers, and it was mentioned by several in an extremely appreciative fashion. So, this issue not only honored me, but also performed a service for the cause in Hungary.
Your wonderful present—the encyclopedia—was already adorning my bookcase upon my arrival. I show it to everyone and am the object of real envy. Binding and fittings are flawless. I already had to look up things several times in i