Letter from Sándor Ferenczi to Sigmund Freud, December 30, 1929

Internationale Psychoanalytische Vereinigung International Psycho-Analytical Association Association Psychanalytique Internationale

Budapest, December 30, 1929

Dear Professor,

You certainly recall the tiresome Dr. Feldmann, whom we allowed to resign from the Association on account of criminal actions admitted to in the course of analysis.—Well, the rascal is getting more and more impudent, since he knows that I am bound by medical discretion. In addition to that, he is proliferating a huge amount of printed matter, embellished with Stekel and Adler, which he hands out as psychoanalysis. I permitted myself to protest against this in your, as well as in my, name by reclaiming the right of the purely Freudian analysts to call themselves psychoanalysts (just like the British Medical Association). I gladly, as I declared, buy into the reproach of orthodoxy; Feldmannism, on the other hand, wants both advantages: that of the cheap revolutionary laurels, but also that of the mimicry of orthodoxy. The declaration will appear in a medical periodical; let's hope you are in agreement with it.1

I hope you had pleasant vacation days; Eitingon was with you, I hear.

I have been plagued recently by morning headaches, from which I slowly recover in the course of the morning.

I had a discussion with Aichhorn, whose special talent I admired. Nevertheless, I called his attention to a certain bias in his psychoanalytic conception of youthful boasting, etc. He acknowledged my statement with a willingness, indeed, gratitude which is rare in authors. He is a very nice person.

Many kind regards.

Yours,

Ferenczi