Letter from Karl Abraham to Sigmund Freud, October 7, 1923

423A

Berlin-Grünewald
7 October 1923

Dear Professor,

During the last few weeks I have been in continuous and lively contact with you in my thoughts, which were certainly charged with affect though not expressed in a letter. I knew you would not interpret my reserve in any other way than it was intended. After having heard, however, about your own attitude to the illness and operation, I cannot hold out any longer and am therefore writing to you. But I promise beforehand that this letter will not say anything further about your condition and will not even contain any good wishes apart from those that you read between the lines.—

I think there is only one thing I can do for the time being to give you pleasure. That is to let you have good reports about our position in Berlin. And, always providing that very bad political conditions do not paralyse our work, I hope to be able to carry out my intentions. Some days ago I reported in the circular letter on our first two meetings. Since then more good news is to be noted. In the next few days we are starting our lending library, which will have to give our younger members access to Ψα literature. Apart from the courses already announced, a further one will be arranged—by Frau Dr Klein1—for kindergarten teachers on the sexuality of the child.

I have something pleasant to report in the scientific field. In my work on melancholia etc., of which Rank has the manuscript, I have assumed the presence of a basic irritation2 in infancy as a prototype for later melancholia. In the last few months Frau Dr Klein has skilfully conducted the Ψα of a three-year-old boy with good therapeutic results. This child faithfully presented the basic melancholia that I had assumed and in close combination with oral erotism. The case offers in general amazing insight into the infantile instinctual life.

I am pleased to see that my assumptions about the two stages in the anal-sadistic phase are confirmed by new material. I had a remarkable experience with