Letter from Karl Abraham to Sigmund Freud, October 13, 1907

7A

Zurich, Burghölzli
13 October 1907

Dear Professor,

Your letter gave me great pleasure and was, at the same time, the best encouragement I could receive. Many thanks for your warm interest, which is apparent in every line of your letter. If you want to call me your pupil, I see no reason why I should object. On the contrary, I see in this a recognition on your part and assure you that for the past three years—that is how long I have studied your works—I have regarded you as my teacher. I shall accept your invitation to come to Vienna as soon as I can. I hope to be settled in Berlin by the beginning of December. If at all possible, I should then like to come to Vienna for a few days.

The Berlin colleagues I know well. I was a physician at the Berlin mental hospital Dalldorf1 for more than three years, until I could bear it no longer. I know how difficult it is in medical Berlin to stand up against an established doctrine. In Zurich I could breathe freely again. No clinic in Germany could have offered me even a fraction of what I have found here. That is also why I do not find it easy to leave. But I have to think of the future, especially since I am married.2

I hope before long to be able to report personally on my scientific plans. I fear I claimed enough of your attention for the time being with my letter about the problem of dementia, and so I would rather not put anything more before you today. Incidentally, in spite of the impending move, I am quite in the mood for a discussion.

No fewer than twenty doctors appeared at the second meeting of our “Freud Society”3 here; some came quite a long distance, from hospitals in the country. So there is no lack of interest here. The next time I shall talk about the question of the infantile sexual trauma. I secretly hope that I can gradually make some propaganda in Berlin.

With kind regards,

your gratefully devoted

Dr K. Abraham