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Burghölzli-Zürich, 19 January 1909
Dear Professor Freud,
As you wished, I am hastening to answer your letter at once. I am delighted with your good news. All goes well with us too, except for the last two days which were taken up with enforced inactivity and influenza. Today my head is more endurable.
I am glad you appreciate my efforts to be as indulgent as I can with Abraham. I should be extremely grateful if you could cure him in time. Since getting to know more about the practice of a nerve specialist this year, I understand Abraham's touchiness very well. What a bitter brew it is! Whenever I find myself stuck with some hopeless resistance, I have to think not so much of you (for I know how quick you are to find a way out) as of my other analytical fellow sufferers, who are obliged to make a living out of their patients' resistances and have as little wisdom to fall back on as I have.
Pfister is a splendid fellow, a neurotic himself of course, though not a severe one. Nothing scares him, a redoubtable champion of our cause with a powerful intelligence. He will make something of it. What? I don't know yet. Oddly enough, I find this mixture of medicine and theology to my liking. His present aim is naturally sublimation, permissible enough in a man of his intelligence. You will shortly receive another longish paper1 from him. He is feverishly busy. Another very good man, recruited by the young Binswanger, is Dr. Häberlin,2 formerly director of a teachers' college, now privatdocent of philosophy3