Beschreibung:

Sigmund Freud (1856-1939)
Typed letter signed (‘Freud’) to Paul Federn, Vienna, 10 November 1924
In German. 2 pages, 289 x 224mm, on headed paper. Provenance: International Autograph Auctions Ltd, 17 October 2009, lot 336.
Freud on disagreements within the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society. Freud justifies to Paul Federn, a fellow member of the Vienna Psychological Society, refusing his request to back Rudolf von Urbantschitsch’s membership renewal into the Society. He writes, ‘I am sorry that you have taken the U[rbantschitsch] affair so seriously, and I believe there is no reason to do so … You have shown in this case, as you have in others, that you are in danger of going too far when it comes to helping someone and getting them out of a bad situation … In the present case of course, you shouldn't have been so confident that my admitted sympathy for U[rbantschitsch] would be strong enough to force him upon the Society against its will … the growing realisation of his untruthfulness made it impossible for me to undertake further steps in his favour … ’
Rudolf von Urbantschitsch (1879-1964) was an Austrian psychiatrist and psychologist, author of Sex Perfection and Marital Happiness (1952). He was analysed by Federn, the letter’s recipient, from 1922. Urbantschitsch became a prolific speaker after the completion of his analysis, but was criticised for vulgarising the discoveries of psychoanalysis and alienating his fellow colleagues from the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society, as the letter illustrates. The Society refused his request for membership renewal in 1924, the year of this letter.