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Burghölzli-Zürich, 8 January 1907
Dear Professor Freud,
I am sorry I have been so long in answering your last, exceedingly friendly and detailed letter. Afterwards I was rather embarrassed at having played hide-and-seek with my dream. Bleuler, to whom I showed the interpretation in its first version, found it much too forthright. This gave me a welcome opportunity to hide behind the interpretation again in its second version and in that way to act out the complexes myself. There are special reasons why I did not bring in the interpretation log = penis, the chief of which was that I was not in a position to present my dream impersonally: my wife therefore wrote the whole description (!!).
You may very well be right when you counsel me to practise more “therapy” on our opponents, but I am still young, and now and then one has one's quirks in the matter of recognition and scientific standing. Working in a University Clinic, one has to give a great many considerations their due which in private life one would prefer to ignore. But in this respect you may rest assured: I shall never abandon any portion of your theory that is essential to me, as I am far too committed to it.
I am now firmly resolved to come to Vienna during my spring holiday (April), in order to enjoy the long-desired pleasure of a personal conversation with you. I have an awful lot to abreact.
Concerning the question of “toxins,” you have again put your finger on a weak spot. Originally I wanted to leave material causes entirely out of my “psychology.” But because I feared misunderstandings owing to the notorious dim-wittedness of the esteemed public, I had at least to mention the “toxin.” I was acquainted with your view that sexuality may play a role here. Also, I find it a thoroughly congenial idea that a so-called “inner” endocrine secretion may be the cause of these disturbances, and that perhaps the sex glands are the makers of the toxins. But I have no proof of this, so I dropped the conjecture. Mor