Letter from Sigmund Freud to Karl Abraham, June 3, 1912

127F

Vienna IX, Berggasse 19
3 June 1912

Dear Friend,

I have read your Egyptian study with the pleasure that I always derive both from your way of writing and your way of thinking, and should like to make only two objections, or, rather, suggestions for alteration.1 Firstly, you claim that when the mother is particularly important, the conflict with the father takes milder forms. I for my part have no evidence of this and must assume that you have had special experiences in this respect. As the matter is not clear to me, I ask you to revise this passage. Secondly, I have doubts about presenting the king as so distinctly a neurotic, which is in sharp contrast with his exceptional energy and achievements, as we associate neuroticism, a term that has become scientifically inexact, precisely with the idea of being inhibited. After all, we all have these complexes, and we must beware of not being called neurotic. If we have successfully stood up against them, we should be spared the name. Perhaps nothing of value will have been sacrificed if you call your work a character study and leave the neurotic as an object of comparison in the background. I cannot judge from my knowledge of the literature how positive the evidence for real neurotic symptoms in Amenhotep IV is. If you have such evidence, do quote the accounts in full.

In cyclothymic cases you should just go on digging; one can see more the next time. The difficulty lies not in finding the material but in linking up what has been found and grouping it according to its layers. Yet, I have also got the impression from your paper, which I value so highly, that the formula is not assured and the elements not yet convincingly linked. If I knew any more than you, I should not withhold it from you, but you will learn more from the cases themselves.—

I am glad to hear that you continue to be satisfied with the practice. I notice that the beginnings of our holidays coincide. I am going first to