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Magyarorszagi Pszichoanalitikai EgyesÜLet (Freud-Társaság)
Budapest, April 26, 1924
Dear Professor,
Although I presume that you have already been apprised in detail by the other side as to the course of the Congress, I still consider it my duty to give you a report.
The general impression was very favorable. Before the discussion afternoon there was still a certain tension in the air—all the Congress participants seemed to have figured on some sort of hostile encounters—but the
discussion itself went along in an air of scientific objectivity. The young Berliners occupied themselves mainly with the problem of describing and making explicable the healing process in the technical language of metapsychology.1 From time to time they also digressed to the problem of activity (furthering repetition, and its later utilization for association [remembering and reconstruction]2); in principle everyone expressed himself quite sympathetically toward this addition to technique. Occasionally they also got to talking about the theme of the “birth trauma” (as the other Congress lectures also frequently came back to this subject in general). This theme was also discussed with matter-of-fact seriousness and without premature dismissal—so that (especially since the hour was late and the discussion lectures were long) Rank and I were able to limit ourselves to a few factual rectifications. I, specifically, had to repulse somewhat more energetically, however, a hidden accusation by Jones, as if someone wanted to emphasize the phylogenetic and the current at the expense of the infantile.
I began the personal exchange of views between the former Committee members by initiating a detailed discussion with Jones and Abraham, into which we later also drew Rank and Sachs.
Abraham tried to justify himself and his attitude by maintaining that his letter to you had only the purpose of causing us (Rank and me), that is to say, the whole Committee, to handle the questionable and, in his view, dangerous