S.
«IP9,0»2O January 1912 4O7 Brunswick Avenue Toronto
«IP0,0»Dear Professor Freud:
«IP4,0»I have for some time been hoping to hear from you, but I expect you have been very busy with your manifold tasks. Did you get my letter of November the 25th?«FN1.××See letter 68.»
«IP4,0»I hear from Rank and others that you are very occupied on the religion question, and that you are also planning a new edition of the «MDUL»Traumdeutung«MDNM», to be entirely re‑written. That will certainly mean much work. I suppose you know that the psychological theories of the «MDUL»Traumdeutung«MDNM» (censor, repression, unconscious, etc.) have received the honour (?) of an article 12O pages long in the «MDUL»Arch. f. d. ges. Psychologie«MDNM» (Heft II). The esteemed author condescendingly remarks that now since he has shown your theories to be wrong you will feel called upon to renounce them, but it does not seem to have occurred to him that there is another alternative.«FN1.××Friedrich Hacker, "Systematische Traumbeobachtungen mit besonderer Berücksichtigung der Gedanken," «MDUL»Archiv für die gesamte Psychologie«MDNM», 21(1911):1‑131.
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Your dream article in the «MDUL»Zentralblatt«MDNM» will surely be useful.«FN1.××Freud (1911e).
» Unfortunately I had had to learn most of the conclusions by bitter experience. I have had two or three patients who definitely showed their resistance by bringing me a flood of dreams every day, so that it soon became impossible to deal with them all. I think an article that would be much appreciated would be one explaining when and under what circumstances one should interpret for the patient without his direct help.
Life has been very quiet with me of late. My wife is about the same. She will cross with me in the early part of May. My writing has been confined to some short and unimportant articles. I read a paper before the Detroit Neurological Society early in December and one before the American Psychological Association at the end of the month. They will be printed, so that of course you will get copies.«FN1.××Jones (1912a, 1912b).
» Probably you got safely a number of reprints some time ago. Were they satisfactory? I always like to have your opinion when you have the time to read my outpourings.
This morning I got a piece of good news that will please you; I suppose it is the immediate cause of my writing today. It was a letter from a Professor Marechau‑Beauchant [«MDUL»sic«MDNM»] in Poitiers, who is very enthusiastic about your work. I fancy that, as usual, he can read English better than German, for he speaks much about my writings. He enclosed an article from the «MDUL»Gazette des Hôpitaux«MDNM» (1911, P. 1845) which shows a good understanding of your theories.«FN1.××Morichau‑Beauchant (1911), see Freud's previous letter.
» It is chiefly on the affective rapport during treatment, and the true meaning of this. It is surely time that France woke up from her lethargy. Also a number of letters from new people in different parts of America and England (even Ireland) show me the rapidly increasing interest that is being taken in the work. In Washington last month I had the opportunity of talking over things with a number of men and was very satisfied with the way in which things are going. Stanley Hall (whose journal has lately been containing some excellently full reviews), told me that he has been running a class for the purpose of studying dreams. He said he had found it difficult to interest the men in dreams, which shows that they could not have had much expert guidance. He also said that he had great difficulty with his own dreams, and found that sexual thoughts were very rare in them, which he put down to his age. I assured him that interest in life ceased not with old age but with death only, and we had a talk about stereotyped symbolism (on the lines of your hat dream analysis«FN1.××Freud (1900a, pp. 360‑362).»).
My most interesting case at present is one of cyclothymia, «FN1.××Manic‑depressive psychosis.
» which has given a therapeutic success far better than could have been hoped for. As far as I can see, the mechanisms seem to stand midway between those of hysteria and of the Zwangsneurose«MDUL»«MDNM», showing some characteristics of each. The central complex was a simple Oedipus one, and perversions were not very important. Recently I had the following interesting experience. An Englishman who called on you in Vienna last year sent me from a distant clime ‑‑ India ‑‑ some three hundred associations which he asked me to interpret without assistance. I wrote back saying that the lady was not neurotic but normal, that she was married but was having sexual relations with the man who took the associations and was afraid of her husband discovering her, that she preferred fellatio to coitus, that she was musical and had such and such accomplishments, and such and such complexes (maternal, anal, etc.). He answered saying that the interpretations were right in every detail, that he was now convinced that the word‑associations method had something in it, and of course pointing out that the communication was confidential (I am telling noone but you about him).
What strange sources we find confirmation of our views in. Who would have thought finding anything of scientific value in the «MDUL»Church Quarterly Review«MDNM»? Yet in the November number there is an article on Reincarnation which contains the following remarkable sentence: "Here perhaps we should mention an idea which is not uncommon among European children of tender age. The present writer, for instance, can well remember that, when a little more than three years old, he had a firm conviction that his parents would by and by grow little again and become «MDUL»his«MDNM» children in their turn. From observations made to him since by very little English boys and girls he has reason to conclude that the same strange fancy exists in not a few childish minds of to‑day. He has heard a little boy say to his mother: 'Mama, when you are little, I will take care of you'. Does this throw any light on the origin of the reincarnation doctrine? Is it natural to the childhood of the race as well as (perhaps) to that of the individual? And does its reappearance in adults among ourselves betoken the 'second childhood' of the race?"«MDNM»«FN1.××Quotation is from Rev. W. St. Clair Tisdall, "Reincarnation," «MDSU»«MDUL»Church Quarterly Review«MDNM», 72(1911):337‑338.
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I have just been exceedingly annoyed by a review of recent work on dreams that Sidis has published in the «MDUL»Psychological Bulletin«MDNM» (January).«FN1.××Boris Sidis, "Dreams," «MDUL»Psychological Bulletin«MDNM», 9(1912):36‑40.
» It contains the most offensive personal remarks about yourself, Rank, Stekel, and myself. It is beyond the limits of what I thought a scientific journal would print, both for disgusting language and venomous malice. The only consolation I can get out of it is the evidence it is of our success as felt by someone who has been ousted from a position of authority in psychopathology. I shall have a sweet revenge when I write my monograph on the treatment of the psychoneuroses, on which I am about to begin.«FN1.××In Jones (1913a, pp. 368, 379) and Jones (1920b, pp. 64, 92) Sidis is treated with deference regarding his concept of "hypoidization."»
At present my energies are altogether absorbed by the Napoleon problem, where I have collected some beautiful material as to his inner mental life. When one is internally impelled in a given direction of interest it is exceedingly difficult to divert the stream into another direction, however laudable. I am saying this by way of excuse, for I feel a little guilty at having given much time to a problem that externally is in no way urgent. Still I am trying to keep my eye on the needs of the situation in general.
With the very best possible good wishes for the New Year from yours always Ernest Jones.
