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International Psycho-Analytical Association
Central Executive
5 April 1923
London
Dear Professor,
L & K have confirmed my letter to them and have found a way to keep my name associated with the matter. Doubtless you will think of getting Martin to arrange for his powers to be transferred in the event of an accident happening to him, otherwise it might now be very difficult to dispose of the money. (i [I] had foreseen this contingency for myself by instructions first to my wife and secondly to Trotter, to be opened after my death).
I was flattered by your finding some value in my auto-suggestion paper and thank you warmly for the trouble you took with it, but your remarks about the part on the mechanism of analytic healing do not entirely allay my uncertainty. I gather that I made no serious error, for otherwise you would have said so. I know well that the treatment of the matter is far from exhaustive, but I seemed to come to a stop on the lines I was pursuing. If you think of any alteration or modification I ought to make in the statements in this part, I should be very grateful to hear of them. I entirely agree with your comment on the Coué adjectives, and had already felt ashamed of them and had struck them out; in fact I did not read the passage at the meeting. The affect was really misplaced, being directed against William Brown, McDougall's successor at Oxford, who has accepted Coué's work in all its simplicity. In fact I was stimulated to writing my paper by a very offensive one he read at a previous meeting.1 By the way, please do not trouble to send the MS back, as I have copies here.
I have not yet dipped into MacCurdy's book, but can well imagine its contents. You will, I hope, be amused by the review I shall write of it in good time.2
Rickman is proving in many ways useful, but it is not too reliable without control. He has an Oriental idea of time, and turns out to be much weaker in character than he gives the impression of being, very easily influenced; his