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Budapest, October 25, 1925
Dear Professor,
Alexander's concoction impressed me as well. I find that his intellectual manner has some similarity to mine, which makes him so especially receptive to suggestions on my part. On the other hand, he is an original
thinker who in part guesses by himself the conclusions that I had inwardly already drawn, and also continues the trains of thought independently of me. He wasn't able to avoid a few factual errors, but I (as editor) don't want to influence the criticism.—
I will procure Dr. Mohr's book. I will probably also have to raise my objection to the attempted opposition of psychoanalysis and “activity.”
The discovery of the wisdom tooth that got stuck and the necessity of an albeit harmless intervention is a troublesome complication; it would also be virtually high time for the prosthesis difficulties to stop. I recently heard about a jaw surgeon respected here, who, after operations of that kind, waits a year before he puts in the prosthesis; he claims that the mucous membrane should be toughened up and hardened first. To be sure, the long period of being without a prosthesis would hardly have been a lesser, for you quite unbearable, evil.
I am pleased that you have to bother yourself less with your patients; my clientele has also become more bearable in this respect. Something should be said about suppressed rage and its consequences in a long-planned work about the hygiene of the psychoanalyst.1
My hours are filled from the beginning of the season on, so that I can give away the current practice completely. The interest of the physicians is beginning to turn toward psychoanalysis; probably in consequence of its growing popularity in Germany.
N.B.: In Alexander's paper I am called “old master” in one passage;2 a kind gesture, but one which is not to be misunderstood! Something similar comes to me by way of public opinion (of physicians). Until recently I was the “disciple” [Jünger], the “youthful go-getter,” etc.—all of a sud