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64A
Dr med. K. Abraham
Berlin W. 35, Schöneberger Ufer 22
14 February 1909
Dear Professor,
First of all, many thanks for your advice. It proved perfectly correct. I was able with the help of anal erotism to explain my patient's fear of eating and several of his other symptoms. For two sessions there was still an embittered resistance, then the associations followed in plenty. I think I am dealing with a particularly difficult case with whom the proven method—to let the patient bring associations freely and uncritically—fails. He is quite intelligent but obstinately declares himself to be stupid, and when I ask him to bring me his associations in this way, he asserts that each time the fear of saying something stupid as well as his aversion to speaking in general arise. I hope that this will change when I have found, in anal erotism, the explanation of the latter symptom. The idea of his stupidity is mainly derived from the fact that his sadistic elder brother constantly showed him up—he is masochist— as the stupid one. The desire for physical and mental ill-treatment by the brother, who has since committed suicide, pervades his whole illness.
Unfortunately it is so difficult to discuss these things by letter. Are you not coming to Berlin soon? I take it that family reasons have kept you in Vienna until now. As there is to be no congress this year, it would be very pleasant indeed to see you sometime in Berlin. Our scientific meetings have been quite stimulating on the whole, but were generally of more sexological character. All the same, there has been a lively interest in psychoanalysis. Hirschfeld has now begun a longish recreational journey that will probably bring him to Vienna, too. Both he and Bloch are very receptive to our efforts, but can naturally not make them their main interest. In this respect Juliusburger is greatly to be praised. He is not only a very likeable, dependable, and loyal person, but has a very subtle understanding of psychology and stands compl