Letter from Ludwig Binswanger to Freud, March 5, 1912

5 March 1912

62B

Dear Professor Freud,

At the moment I am enjoying a spell of involuntary leisure following an attack of appendicitis which is now subsiding but will probably call for the removal of the trouble-maker in a few months’ time.1 You are often in my thoughts, but particularly this past week, for personal as well as for scientific reasons. I would have written earlier had I any progress in my work to report.2 No matter how much thought I devote to it, however, little practical headway is made, and even today I still doubt whether anything will come of it and whether there is the slightest chance of relating the psychoanalytical method to clinical psychiatry in such a way that something new will emerge. Jung has already stated the gist of the matter in his Inhalt der Psychose3 [The Content of the Psychoses]. Even so, I have no regrets about continuing to pursue this theme since it defines the basis of my own attitude and obliges me to read much that I should otherwise have neglected.

I was very interested in Kronfeld's paper,4 which unfortunately no one appears to be inclined to challenge. It shows clearly how, by relying on ‘logic’ alone, one's view can be obstructed, and broad, fertile and cultivated fields overlooked. His account of your doctrine seems very good to me; it is probably the best from the other camp. His impertinent judgements and condemnations from the platform of pure logic should no doubt be put down to his youth. After all these clinical surveys, I myself thirst for living material; and I can have it for the asking. - The new year has begun quite well. My colleagues have settled down to the work so well that I can confine myself to the role of director and take on just the isolated case, which I then treat by analysis. I have much more peace and quiet than I did last year, when I was still feeling my way into my role and responsibilities