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284A
Allenstein
13 November 1915
Dear Professor,
Your letter of the 7th1 took only three days to get here; the proofs followed yesterday. Many thanks for both. I am particularly glad that so far your sons have safely and honourably survived all dangers.
I have been able to breathe more freely for the last few days. For the past eight months I had the most exhausting job at this hospital, but I have now left the Surgical Department for good. I am at present organizing an observation ward for psychopathic soldiers and shall probably very shortly be doing only psychiatric and psychotherapeutic work, as has long been my wish. It is likely that I shall have to write a great many reports for the court, but I am sure I shall have time for analytical studies. In these few days, during which I have been busy with about a dozen patients, I have already made some interesting findings about the origin of paralyses in the war-wounded. If things go as I wish, many cases of psychosis should pass through my hands, and I hope the scientific result will prove useful to us.
You are quite right, dear Herr Professor, when you write in your letter of my “awakening”. But while I was working ten hours and more every day, often with disturbed nights as well, and with many other things on my mind, I could do no more than vegetate for months on end. If circumstances permit, then certainly nothing on my part will stand in the way of things being different from now on.