Letter from Sigmund Freud to C. G. Jung, January 25, 1909

Vienna IX, Berggasse 19
January 25, 1909

Dear Friend

I know that for everyone who has digested his first suc-cesses in psychoanalysis there follows a difficult and bitter period during which he curses it and its founder. After a while, however, this feeling subsides and he arrives at a modus vivendi. These are

the realities! C'est la guerre. Perhaps my essay on technique1 (which I am trying hard to finish) may redress the worst, but certainly not very much. Still, it is only by struggling with difficulties that one learns, and I am not at all sorry that Bleuler has deprived you of your teaching job. You are destined to be a teacher anyway; sooner or later you will have more than enough of it, whereas into psychoanalytical practice one has to be forced. It is good to have no choice.

“He does his best who cannot do otherwise” is more or less what C. F. Meyer makes his man on the Ufenau say. To salve my con-science I often tell myself: Above all don't try to cure, just learn and earn some money! These are the most useful conscious aims.

Meanwhile I have received from Pfister an intelligent letter bursting with ideas.Me and the Protestant Monthly, just imagine! But I don't mind. In some respects the clerical analysts work under better conditions; moreover, they have nothing to do with money. Teachers really should be familiar with all our ideas, if only for the sake of the healthy child. Which is why I greet the news of your course for teachers with a cheerful Prosit!

I acknowledge my slip of the pen with a smile. Good intentions are of no avail in the struggle against these devilish little tricks of the demon, so one just has to take them in one's stride.

With best regards, also for the now complete family.2

Your
Freud