Letter from Sigmund Freud to C. G. Jung, December 30, 1906

30 December 19061

Dear colleague,

Perhaps you can make some use of this observation in spite of its sketchiness. I have been called in as a consultant in the case of a woman of 26, who gave birth to her first child 6 weeks ago and whose condition set in about the middle of her pregnancy. According to the family doctor, who is not too familiar with our ideas, the woman's explanation of her severe depression is that she had turned herself into an “imbecile” by the habit formed in childhood of retaining her urine so long that its discharge would provide her with sexual sensations. This she continued to do for some time after her marriage. Then she stopped (her illness probably began at that time). She married for love after an acquaintance of six years and a prolonged struggle with her family. She is very much in love with her husband (he is an actor), but has been totally anaesthetic in sexual intercourse. The patient adds that it has never occurred to her to blame her husband for her lack of satisfaction, that she is convinced it is her fault. Her depression was probably connected with her anxiety about her impending delivery. She had kept insisting that she would not be able to give birth normally, and gloated when a forceps delivery was required: she had been right. She maintains quite seriously that her child is a hopeless “imbecile.” She has made repeated attempts at suicide (always taking her precautions) and written her husband mournful letters of farewell. Once she actually left home, but only went as far as her sister's flat, where she played the piano. She has occasionally struck her baby. When asked if she loves the child, she says: Yes, but it's not the right one.

States of manic excitation have been noted. One is struck by mega-lomaniacal statements in reference to her illness: her condition is unprecedented, the doctors will never be able to help her, and it would