Letter from Freud to Alphonse Maeder, June 9, 1910

9 June 1910
Vienna IX, Berggasse 19

32F

[To Alphonse Maeder]

Dear Doctor [‘Maeder’ added in Binswanger's hand],

I have now talked to Herr v. T. twice and shall continue these talks twice a week. Whether we shall begin the treatment in the autumn depends on their outcome. It seems clear to me that he will shortly be over his melancholy, but he still fails to see that the mood in which he is caught up is not a normal one. Thus he simply denies that his slight projection delusion directed against me is due to my making light of his masturbation rather than strictly interdicting it. Incidentally, my latitude has not persuaded him to raise the subject of masturbation during the therapy; had I forbidden him to masturbate we should certainly have concluded that this ban had made it impossible for him to own up. The result of my approach is probably an openness about masturbation phantasies and activities which he is now likely to maintain. He persists in his resolve to sublimate his libido completely, but at least he now admits it freely.

Once we have access to his masturbation phantasies we shall have a chance of influencing him further. However, it is still an open question whether during the hypomanic phase he can keep the promises he makes at the end of the melancholic period.

I have five weeks left to the end of this working year.1

With kind regards to you and to the Binswangers,

Yours, Freud