BRITISH PSYCHO‑ANALYTICAL SOCIETY

                               22 January 1922  London W1

Dear Professor:

I thought it might interest you if I told you a few words about your new patient Mrs. Riviere,^[1] who is going to Vienna next week, as she plays a considerable part in the society here.  It is a case of typical hysteria, almost the only symptoms being sexual anaesthesia and unorganized Angst, with a few inhibitions of a general nature.  Most of her neurosis goes into marked character reactions, which is one reason why I was not able to cure her.  I am specially interested in the case, for as it is the worst failure I have ever had I have naturally learnt very much from her analysis.  She came to me in 1916 and was with me till last June, with about a year's interruptions from tuberculosis and other causes.  Seeing that she was unusually intelligent I hoped to win her for the cause, a mistake I shall never repeat.  I underestimated the uncontrollability of her emotional reactions and in the first year made the serious error of lending her my country cottage for a week when I was not there, she having nowhere to go for a holiday.  This led to a declaration of love and to the broken‑hearted cry that she had never been rejected before (she has been the mistress of a number of men).  From that time on she devoted herself to torturing me without any intermission and with considerable success and ingenuity, being a fiendish sadist; my two marriages gave her considerable opportunity for this which she exploited to the full.  The treatment finally broke down over my inability to master this negative transference, though I tried all means in my power.  The situation was complicated by her position in the society, which gave her a certain personal contact with me.  Her dissatisfied reproaches were equally great whether I limited this as far as possible, which I usually did, or allowed it, so for two years at least I have seen that the only solution was to get her to go to you and have finally succeeded in this.  Her symptoms are much better (she can talk fluently at a meeting where she was once dumb from Angst) and she has a far‑reaching insight, but the main complexes are only intellectually resolved.  She has a most colossal narcissism imaginable, to a great extent secondary to the refusal of her father to give her a baby and her subsequent masculine indentification with him.  Naturally she comes to you with a strong positive transference ready, and my only fear is lest there be not time enough to provoke and work through the necessary negative aspect of this.  In that case we should lose a valuable translator and member of the society, for I think she understands psa better than any other member except perhaps Flügel.  Incidently she has a strong complex about being a well‑born lady (county family) and despises all the rest of us, especially the women.

With most cordial greetings  yours always sincerely  Ernest Jones

^[1]           Joan (née Verrall) Riviere (1883‑1962), one of the most important members of The British Psycho‑Analytical Society, played a crucial role in the first English translations of Freud's writings, especially Freud (1916‑17) and many of the short articles in Freud, Collected Papers.