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344A
Allenstein
27 October 1918
Dear Professor,
Exactly a month has passed since our pleasant days in Budapest.1 The opportunity for discussion we had there made correspondence dispensable for a while, but I should now like to resume it.
In the meantime, the conference on the neuroses has taken place in Berlin, and, as I already foresaw in Budapest, I was delegated to it. The political situation made it impossible for Simmel and me to intervene successfully for our cause. Since an early peace was then anticipated, one could hardly expect a receptive mood towards new ideas. Moreover, I was able to convince myself that hostility from psychiatric circles has remained unchanged. I cannot even say that I am unhappy about this, for I did not like the idea that psychoanalysis should suddenly become fashionable because of purely practical considerations. We would rapidly have acquired a number of colleagues who would merely have paid lip service and would afterwards have called themselves psychoanalysts. Thus our position as outsiders2 will continue for the time being.
On the return journey from Budapest, and also more recently in Berlin, I have become more closely acquainted with Simmel. He has not yet in any way moved beyond the Breuer-Freud point of view, has strong resistances against sexuality, which he himself does not see clearly, and has unfortunately even stressed, at the Berlin meeting, that, according to his own experience, sexuality does not play an essential part in the war neuroses and the analyses. Perhaps he will develop further. But we must by no means overrate him. The letter you showed me in B. therefore does not give the complete picture.
Political events absorb so much of one's interest at present that one is automatically distracted from scientific work. All the same, some new plans are beginning to mature. I am making progress with Fräulein H. It remains to be seen what the therapeutic success will be. I have, though, discovered something new about obsession