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Dr. S. Ferenczi
vii., Nagydiofa-Utca 3.1
Budapest, November 13, 1927
Dear Professor,
You will certainly already have thought that my long silence is no coincidence. Well, since the cause has already—I think—for the most part been removed, I can write to you again. The nocturnal disturbances of my well-being have “afflicted” me again since my return home, so that during the day (despite significant diminution of my work hours) I only just acceded to the demands of unavoidable activity, but lacked any desire or strength for other work or correspondence. I made an exception with regard to Society matters, which I took up out of a feeling of duty.—I evidently bear bodily inactivity badly; this insight then also helped me toward rational therapy, which brought considerable success for the time being. Calisthenics and breathing exercises brought better nights—along with that, also improvement in my energy and desire for work. I will let the final decision about my plan for the future depend on, among other things, whether this improvement continues.
To get back to your latest news, I thank you especially for the kind words that you wrote to me on the occasion of the publication of the “Introduction” to the American Lay Analysis. I don't recall anymore the wording of that introduction; but I think I know it to the extent that it cannot have contained anything other than what I have been thinking and preaching for twenty years: the thanks that we owe you for the light that you brought to the darkness of knowledge about man. Now it occurs to me that you give the year 1909 as the beginning of our collaboration. That is an error—it began in 1907.2 I hope that the other statement, that our future path is a short one from now on, will also prove to be false.
As I like to have my patients tell me the bad things that they think about me, I would like to know, unadorned, everything that Brill and Jones said about themselves in their correspondence with you. Could you send me these letter