July 1st, 1921

Dear Friends:

I find the Berlin proposal of a fortnightly Rundbrief during the 
holidays too often, and the Vienna one of a monthly one too rare, so 
suggest that we write July 21, August 15, and September 1.

I enclose for Vienna Prof. Junker’s letter. I quite agree that it is 
a common swindle, so will waste no further words on it. The announced 
advertisement of the I. Psa. Verlag was not enclosed in my letter; it would 
interest me to see it.

Rank’s exhortation not to exclude lay workers it was hardly necessary 
to address to London, where we have been much more tolerant to them than 
in any other society: they are represented on our committee of the society, 
on the editorial staff, and make up more than a third of our membership.

Yesterday I interviewed the chief of the Porth circle, a dentist, and 
got details from him. They are evidently quite beginners and not even 
clear to the Jung question. I have promised to help them by advice on books, by supplying the J[ournal] at membership prices, and by trying to arrange lectures for them. Affiliation must wait until they show signs of how they 
will develop, but I am very hopeful about them and had a good impression. 
Last night there was a joint meeting of our committee and that of the 
B-Sq. Clinic. They were willing for all the concessions we asked and it 
was possible to come to a complete understanding on both sides, so that 
so far the situation is most promising, nor will there be any difficulty 

on the side of the authorities of the Clinic or Orthopsychic Society.

The three obstacles still to be overcome are (1) to safeguard our position 
legally about combined work with unqualified lay people, about which we 
are now making legal inquiries, for the General Medical Council has auto-
cratic powers to ruin one completely if it chooses to take action. (2) 
financial and allied details. It will be necessary to move the location from 
B-Sq. to the West End, both for reasons of accessibility and saving 
of time and to avoid the bad odium attaching to the present clinic. (3) 
to find enough workers who can give the time, especially for the courses 
of lectures, there being in truth hardly anyone besides myself. A sub- 
committee was appointed to work out the details, and I hope to learn 
much from our Berlin colleagues in September, so that no active steps 
can be taken before the autumn, when the Annual Business Meeting of the 
society takes place. But the future looks really promising. The plan is 
to dissolve the Orthopsychic Society, to select from there the best workers 
so that there would be perhaps about six medical workers and eight lay 
ones, to do no training and give no lectures except in Psa itself (the 
previous training at the clinic was a general one as well).

Budapest. I also want to express my high admiration at the scientific 
performance of the Budapest group, which excels that of any other and 
is approached by none except Berlin. I must confess also to a (generous) 
envy when I contrast this state of affairs with that in England, for 
here not one paper has been read in the past year, and our work is con-
fined to short contributions from cases, general discussions, reading 
of translations, and the like.

I can also tell you, my dear Ferenczi, that last week I had my first 
concilium for three months. Practice has been extremely bad since the 
great industrial depression that began last winter, but there are signs 
that it may now improve.

Vienna. I have finished the last revision of the Jenseits and incorporated 
the additions from the second edition; a quarter has been sent to Hiller 
and the rest should soon follow, for two-thirds are now typed.

Would it be possible for me to read Ossipow’s work? I had thought of 
writing a short article on the definition of sexuality, or rather on the 
absence of any necessity for defining it, etc, and wonder what O[ssipow] says.

L’Encephale has asked me to write for them an article on the history of 
the psa movement, which I suppose I must find time to do. I am in favour 
of trying to extend the J. to France so far as is possible. The publishing 
of Saussure’s review had as a result that someone wrote to me from Paris 
saying they had several patients suitable for analysis if there were any-
one there, so of course I recommended Sokolnicka.

With cordial greetings and best wishes to all for pleasant holidays

Ernest Jones.