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Kreuzlingen, 27 August 1924
143B
Dear Professor Freud,
I was delighted with your paper on masochism1 and should be most grateful if you could let me have an offprint of it and, if possible, of some of the preceding short papers, too, if you still have enough copies. Since I possess almost all your earlier papers in the form of offprints, I am anxious to add the most recent ones. Needless to say, I have all your major works. I often long to see you and to discuss matters with you, but I assume that a visit would still be a burden to you, and for that reason I shall not bother you.
Everything is well with us, and our six are healthy. The youngest is now the same age as the oldest was when last you saw him. The latter has done very well in throwing off his ties to his mother2 and has become an independent and strapping young fellow. He is already in the Obersekunda.3 The clinic has suddenly become very busy again this year, because the Germans have been allowed to come back. I have had a young assistant from Berlin4 since April, very capable analytically. All my mental efforts are now dedicated to my next book,5 in which I intend to apply what general psychological knowledge I have gleaned to psychoanalysis. That will probably be the main work of my life. Once psychoanalysis has held one in its grip, it never lets go again; depending on predisposition, one surrenders to it practically or theoretically, unable to deny that it has become one's life work.
With kind regards from my wife and myself,
Ever yours, [L.Binswanger]