You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
20 February 1913
Vienna IX, Berggasse 19
86F
Prof. Dr. Freud
Dear Dr. Binswanger,
Letter-writing is truly no way to communicate for those who have something to say to each other. For three weeks, I have agonised over my reply to your last comprehensive letter, but precisely because it so called for a reply I could not get down to it and had to wait for this evening when, shivering slightly with influenza, I am incapable of any other work. As you will readily understand, my tasks have mounted up all the more since my recent travels, so that for the most part each day is a struggle for existence.
You are right, I am sure, in your view of the homosexual choice of object, and perhaps even more than you imagine. Even in the most normal people the object represents a bisexual wish fulfilment and will constantly be transposed from man to woman and vice versa. The matter has long since ceased to be as simple as the homosexual spokesmen make it out to be.
The problem of counter-transference, which you touch upon, is-technically — among the most intricate in psychoanalysis.1 Theoretically I believe it is much easier to solve. What we give to the patient should, however, be a spontaneous affect, but measured out consciously at all times, to a greater or lesser extent according to need. In certain circumstances a great deal, but never from one's own unconscious. I would look upon that as the formula. One must, therefore, always recognise one's counter-transference and overcome it, for not till then is one free oneself. To give someone too little because one loves him too much is unfair to the patient and a technical error. This is all far from easy, and perhaps one has to be older for it, too.
Castration phantasies are extremely frequent in women, though not to be sought behind every vomiting fit, of course. For example, everything that is correct in Adler's assumptions may be reduced to penis envy and fear of castration.
I can see that I am not even up to letter-writing today. So let m