Letter from Karl Abraham to Sigmund Freud, January 29, 1908

19A

Berlin
29 January 1908

Dear Professor Freud,

I hope you did not take it as a lack of interest that I have not written up to now, and especially that I have not asked after the progress of your patient. The influenza that is raging in Berlin has not spared me, and so I had to postpone writing. I should very much like to ask you to tell me in your next letter how your daughter is. But if you do not feel like writing at present, I beg you not to bother for the time being about the following things that I want to ask you and tell you. Your last letter has once again given me some very important insights. It always seems to fit in so incredibly well with my patients! Recently I had yet another opportunity of confirming the fact that I would be totally unable to understand most cases of neurosis without knowledge of your concepts. I saw two cases of anxiety neurosis on the same day, both men, as if they had conspired together to give me a demonstration of the main aetiological factors of their illness. In one case coitus interruptus, in the other it can be proved that frustrated sexual excitement is the main factor in the illness. In both cases a few questions led me to the root of the matter, and my own confidence quickly gained me theirs. In both, treatment is progressing very satisfactorily. I may perhaps report to you at a later date on the very interesting symptoms of one of them. Just one small detail, incidentally, about the other one. I spoke to his wife privately and reassured her with regard to her husband's impotence. Hardly had I said to her that potency could be restored, when the lady, who had hitherto held her handbag quietly by its chain, began opening and shutting it.—The patient with obsessional symptoms, about whom I asked your advice the other day, improved a little and then lost patience. I had to break off the analysis, which had been very uphill work.