Letter from Sigmund Freud to Karl Abraham, February 2, 1909

63F

Vienna IX, Berggasse 19
2 February 1909

Dear Colleague,

I thank you for showing me so much consideration and hasten (relatively) to reply. Your patient obviously treats eating and talking as sexual activities. The course to follow is to search for the conditions in which his inhibitions become meaningful; and I hope you will find the problem readily soluble if you bear in mind the “displacement upwards” that you otherwise apply so skilfully and refer back to anal activity the oral activity (including speech) on which there is so much emphasis in this case. With the key of anal erotism, which is constitutionally reinforced in all homosexuals, you will be able to unlock the closed doors easily.

Little work has been done on food fads, but very often they have the same root as in your second patient. In the course of time you will increasingly fall in with the inevitable trend to trace back more and more to sex, to genital and functional details.

I know nothing about Stegmann's paper. Is Frank's paper the earlier one? Our Jahrbuch must be ready in a few days.1 Rank's Heldengeburt is already being printed.

I eagerly await further news from you.

With cordial greetings,

Yours,

Freud