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Vienna, June 22, 1894
Dearest friend,
Your letter, which I have just read, reminds me of the debt which in any case I intended to pay soon. Today I withdrew from my meager practice in order to draft something, but instead I shall write you a rather long letter about “Theory and Life.”
I am pleased with your opinion that the anxiety story is not yet quite right; it echoes my own. The essay, for example, has not been seen by anyone else. I will leave it until things become clearer. I have not yet gotten any further, however, and must wait until light dawns upon me from somewhere. I should like to launch a preliminary communication on the justification for differentiating anxiety neurosis from neurasthenia, but there I would have to go into theory and etiology and therefore I would rather not do it. I have further worked out the conversion theory and illuminated its relation to autosuggestion, but this, too, is not complete; I am letting it lie. The book I am doing with Breuer will contain five case histories; an essay by him, from which I wholly disassociate myself, on the theories of hysteria (summarizing and critical); and one by me on therapy, which I have not yet begun.
I am sending you the last case history today; from its style you will notice that I have been ill. The confession of my long-concealed symptoms appears between pages 4 and 5. The material itself is really very instructive; for me, it was decisive.