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Kreuzlingen, 31 January 1923
132B
Dear Professor Freud,
Having allowed the first day of the New Year to pass without writing to you, I would at least like to make sure that this does not happen
with the first month. I have been thinking of you a great deal, partly because now that I have done the necessary spadework, the idea of my book on psychoanalysis1 is gradually taking clearer shape, but partly for purely personal reasons. Towards the end of the year, I dreamt that I had invited you to come here for a consultation. When I woke up, I discovered that this pious wish had just one real component, namely that the patient in question was well-endowed with foreign currency whereas all the other attributes (age, nature of the psychosis) were absent. Reality turned out to be all the more grotesque in relation to my dream in that the patient's family, as I heard today, have asked Kraepelin,2 who is at present in Switzerland, to look at the patient.
I was very sorry to hear from Frau Dr. Oberholzer3 that your family has suffered another grievous loss.4 My own family has so far been spared all ills and we are still expanding. At the end of September our fifth son5 was born and has been distinguishing himself by being especially vigorous and healthy. My wife is still breast-feeding him and is well even though she does feel that she has expended most of her strength on her children. But despite everything she still devotes much of her time to our patients. On the other hand, I recently heard to my sorrow that my stepmother,6 whom you once met, is suffering from advanced intestinal cancer. Her operation could only be considered a palliative one. My stepmother is not yet 50, was married for the second time to a much younger man7 two years ago, and has only just attained her full intellectual development and maturity.
You have never written to me about my book, something, however, that neither upsets nor grieves me. I had to expect that my whole approach would strike you as ‘phil