Details
FREUD, Sigmund. Autograph letter signed ("S Freud") to Dr. [Isador Henry] Coriat, Berggasse 19, Vienna, 21 January 1921. 2 pages, 4to, in very bold ink on Freud's personal stationery, slight fold separation, matted and framed, in German.
FREUD ON DOSTOYEVSKY, BLUEBEARD AND ALFRED ADLER
A fine, warm letter to an American analyst: "I have long been acquainted with your name, but I believe that the letter which accompanied your book was the first that I have ever received from you. I am very sorry that you were not able to be present at the last Psychoanalytical Congress in the Hague...Of our American colleagues only Dr. Ad[olph] Stern of New York was present. I may say that the absence of representatives of analyists from your country was a great disappointment for us all. I would have liked so much to make your acquaintance. I read your book at once with the greatest interest and satisfaction. For your information a few remarks...a) Gilles de Retz (or Rais), the original of Bluebeard, is now mostly regarded as innocent of the crimes attributed to him and more as the victim of the cupidity of the Duke. b) Was Dostoievski really an epileptic? I doubt it very much. Everything (type of attack -- personality) points to the likelihood that he was a severe hysteric whose illness can be brought into close relation with the nature...of his writings. c) I cannot quite understand how you as a convinced analyst can admire Alf. Adler, who, it is true, has made a good contribution to the psychology of the Ego but on the other hand denies everything else that is characteristic of Psychoanalysis -- the repression of the Unconscious, the meaning of sexuality -- and owes his importance mainly to the negative traits. What a pity we cannot talk this over at length...."
Coriat, an American analyst, was the author of What is Psychoanalysis? (1919), Repressed Emotions (1919), The Meaning of Dreams (1915), The Hysteria of Lady Macbeth (1912) and collaborated on several other works in the field.
FREUD ON DOSTOYEVSKY, BLUEBEARD AND ALFRED ADLER
A fine, warm letter to an American analyst: "I have long been acquainted with your name, but I believe that the letter which accompanied your book was the first that I have ever received from you. I am very sorry that you were not able to be present at the last Psychoanalytical Congress in the Hague...Of our American colleagues only Dr. Ad[olph] Stern of New York was present. I may say that the absence of representatives of analyists from your country was a great disappointment for us all. I would have liked so much to make your acquaintance. I read your book at once with the greatest interest and satisfaction. For your information a few remarks...a) Gilles de Retz (or Rais), the original of Bluebeard, is now mostly regarded as innocent of the crimes attributed to him and more as the victim of the cupidity of the Duke. b) Was Dostoievski really an epileptic? I doubt it very much. Everything (type of attack -- personality) points to the likelihood that he was a severe hysteric whose illness can be brought into close relation with the nature...of his writings. c) I cannot quite understand how you as a convinced analyst can admire Alf. Adler, who, it is true, has made a good contribution to the psychology of the Ego but on the other hand denies everything else that is characteristic of Psychoanalysis -- the repression of the Unconscious, the meaning of sexuality -- and owes his importance mainly to the negative traits. What a pity we cannot talk this over at length...."
Coriat, an American analyst, was the author of What is Psychoanalysis? (1919), Repressed Emotions (1919), The Meaning of Dreams (1915), The Hysteria of Lady Macbeth (1912) and collaborated on several other works in the field.