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433F
Vienna, Berggasse 191
4 March 1924
Dear Friend,
You certainly made my heart heavy by the reawakening of old Salzburg memories. I reluctantly discern from your letter the opinion that it is not easy to discuss certain personal as well as factual differences with
me. I know that that is what my opponents proclaim to the world, but my nearest friends should know better. Nor is there any reason for you to make any such assumption, because, though my personal intimacy with Rank and Ferenczi has increased because of geographical factors, you ought to have complete confidence that you stand no lower than they in my friendship and esteem.
I want to let you know that an apprehension of the kind that you expressed is not so far from my mind. When Rank first told me about his finding, I said jokingly: “With an idea like that, anyone else would set up on his own.” I think that the emphasis is on the “anyone else”, as you yourself admit too. When Jung used his first independent experiences to free himself from analysis, we both know that he had strong neurotic and selfish motives that took advantage of this discovery. I could then say with justification that his crooked character did not compensate me for his lopsided theories. Incidentally, I learn from a case that came to me from him that he has been tempted into tracing back a severe obsessional neurosis to the conflict between individualism and collectivism.
In the case of our two friends, the situation is different. We are, after all, confident that they have no bad motives other than those secondary tendencies involved with scientific work, the tendencies to make new and surprising discoveries. The only danger arising out of this is of falling into error, which is difficult to avoid in scientific work after all. Let us assume the most extreme case: if Ferenczi and Rank were to come right out with the claim that we were wrong to stop at the Oedipus complex. The real decision was with the trauma of birth, and one who has no