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9 September 1932
The Plat, Elsted
Dear Professor,
I seize the first peaceful moment to write to you. In the first place will you allow me to express my sympathy over the difficulty that has arisen with your oldest and dearest analytical friend. I know that you will not be tempted to copy the old Kaiser (“mir bleibt….”)1 because your calibre is too tough, and you are surrounded both by affection and by followers whose acceptance of the unconscious is unbreakable. Nevertheless, how painful it must be I can imagine. To Eitingon it came as a shock of surprise, to you probably less so. To me not at all, for I have followed F's evolution (including the pathological side) closely for many years, and knew it could only be a question of time before this denouement arrived. Abraham and I drew him forcibly back from the precipice at the Rank time, and lately Rickman's regular reports of his analysis showed me clearly the direction things were going. His exceptionally deep need of being loved, together with the repressed sadism, are plainly behind the tendency to ideas of persecution. My reaction was therefore very simple: first the cause, then everything to keep him with us. The first excluded the possibility of his