Letter from Freud to Ludwig Binswanger, March 5, 1911

5 March 1911
Vienna IX, Berggasse 19

51F

Prof Dr. Freud

Dear Dr. Binswanger,

Thank you for your news. I hope that, given patience, you will get over your problems and that you will not regret having preserved your independence.

I was both hurt to the quick1 and moved to laughter by your criticism of the footnote to Putnam.2 It was I, you see, who was the translator, and who was also the author of the short note. But I am not offended; your impression cannot have been entirely without foundation, after all.

Your passage on analysis3 struck me as being far too fainthearted; but I know there is no credit to be had in beating the big drum, and much more in doing the correct thing and doing it consistently.

I am now president of the Vienna group. Adler and Stekel have stepped down,4 the first probably because he felt, and rightly so, that no one with his views can be the standard-bearer of our cause. It is admittedly given out that our common ground is the practice of the psychoanalysis method, but in fact what we jointly uphold against the world, namely the appreciation of the libido, is something from which Adler has moved very far. He perpetuates the misunderstandings of the ego which we believed we had overcome.