Internationale Psychoanalytische Vereinigung

Küsnach-Zürich, 3 December 1912

This letter is a brazen attempt to accustom you to my style. So look out!1

Dear Professor Freud,

My very best thanks for one passage in your letter, where you speak of a “bit of neurosis” you haven't got rid of. This “bit” should, in my opinion, be taken very seriously indeed because, as experience shows, it leads “usque ad instar voluntariae mortis.”2 I have suffered from this bit in my dealings with you, though you haven't seen it and didn't understand me properly when I tried to make my position clear. If these blinkers were removed you would, I am sure, see my work in a very different light. As evidence that you—if I may be permitted so disrespectful an expression—underestimate my work by a very wide margin, I would cite your remark that “without intending it, I have