Emma Jung – Sigmund Freud Correspondence
From Emma Jung
Dear Professor Freud, Kusnacht, 8 March 1910
I am writing to you in the name of my husband, who suddenly left for Chicago today, where his former patient, McCormick, is seriously ill.
According to the reports it could be paralysis or mania; but thinks it possible that the trouble is psychogenic and therefore followed the call.
He urgently requests you not to worry about Nuremberg as he-will quite certainly be there.
He will arrive either on March 20th, 9.34 p.m. or on the 30th, 5 a.m., and in any case will arrive in time for the beginning of the Congress.
His boat, Kronptinzessin Cacilie, picks him up tomorrow in Cherbourg and arrives in New York on the 15th. On the 22nd he leaves again on the same steamer, will be in Cherbourg on the 25th and in
Nuremberg via Paris-Cologne on the 29th.
Then I have to ask you what kind of title you want to give your Nuremberg lecture and whether it is all right with you to be the first speaker on the morning of the 30th.
I should be very grateful to you if you would tell me this as soon as possible on a postcard, so that the programmes can then be printed and sent off.
Just at the moment of departure a letter arrived from Vogt in Berlin inquiring about the paper on the neurosis theory for Brussels.
I am asking him to be patient as the letter came too late, and would you in the meantime please give my husband your opinion of it.
His military service may make the whole thing impossible.
Is it of interest to you that Isserlin asked if he might attend the Congress in Nuremberg as a “silent listener” (an objective one, of course!)
and that this was refused for very convincing reasons?
With kind regards to you and all your family,
Emma Jung
[Emma Jung: “… America no longer has the same attraction for him as before, and this has taken a stone from my heart”]
From Emma Jung
Dear Professor Freud, Kusnacht, 16 March 1910
Here at last you have the programme for Nuremberg, from which you will see that your lecture comes first after all.
My husband had never said anything about his speaking on the 1st day, and as the title is only “Report on America” it will not upset the plan.
I also think he will be glad not to have to speak first, as he may be arriving in Nuremberg at in the morning and will probably be rather tired.
Many thanks for your kind letter- and offer of help which I shall gladly accept if anything more difficult happens.
I can set your mind at rest by telling you that a young friend and pupil of my husband’s, Dr. Honegger, is deputizing with the patients and looking after the Nuremberg business
with me, otherwise I would be rather nervous about everything turning out all right.
Today I am expecting news of my husband’s safe arrival in New York; I do hope it comes soon.
Incidentally, America no longer has the same attraction for him as before, and this has taken a stone from my heart.
It is just enough to satisfy the desire for travel and adventure, but no more than that.
I was very sorry to hear that Frau Hollitscher has had to undergo another operation; I hope she will soon recover and that it will be a lasting success this time.
Please give her my warmest greetings and wishes.
I send greetings to you and all your dear ones,
Emma Jung ~Freud/Jung Letters, Page 303,
[Emma Jung and “I don’t really know how I am summoning the courage…”]
Dear Professor Freud, Kusnacht, 30 October [1911]
I don’t really know how I am summoning the courage to write you this letter, but am certain it is not from presumption; rather I am following the voice of my unconscious, which I have so often found was right and which I hope will not lead me astray this time.
Since your visit I have been tormented by the idea that your relation with my husband is not altogether as it should be, and since it definitely ought not to be like this I want to try to do whatever is in my power.
I do not know whether I am deceiving myself when I think you are somehow not quite in agreement with “Transformations of Libido.”
You didn’t speak of it at all and yet I think it would do you both so much good if you got down to a thorough discussion of it. Or is it something else?
If so, please tell me what, dear Herr Professor; for I cannot bear to see you so resigned and I even believe that your resignation relates not only to your real children (it made a quite special impression on me when you spoke of it) but also to your spiritual sons; otherwise you would have so little need to be resigned.
Please do not take my action as officiousness and do not count me among the women who, you once told me, always spoil your friendships.
My husband naturally knows nothing of this letter and I beg you not to hold him responsible for it or to let any kind of unpleasant effects it may have on you glance off on him.
I hope nevertheless that you will not be angry with your very admiring
Emma Jung ~Freud/Jung Letters, Pages 452.453
From Emma lung
My dear Professor Freud, Kusnacht, 6 November [1911]
Your nice kind letter has relieved me of anxious doubts, for I was afraid that in the end I had done something stupid.
Now I am naturally very glad and thank you with all my heart for your friendly reception of my letter, and particularly for the goodwill you show to all of us.
In explanation of my conjecture I would like to tell you, first, that it is not a question at all of things consciously perceived; you didn’t even let us sympathize with your toothache, which ordinarily is a perfect justification for even the worst mood.
If I talked about “Symbols” it was chiefly because I knew how eagerly Carl was waiting for your opinion; he had often said he was sure you would not approve of it, and for that reason was awaiting your verdict with some trepidation.
Of course this was only a residue of the father (or mother) complex which is probably being resolved in this book; for actually Carl, if he holds something to be right, would have no need to worry about anybody else’s opinion.
So perhaps it is all to the good that you did not react at once so as not to reinforce this father-son relationship.
The second reason was provided by the conversation on the first morning after your arrival, when you told me about your family.
You said then that your marriage had long been “amortized,” now there was nothing more to do except-die.
And the children were growing up and then they become a real worry, and yet this is the only true joy.
This made such an impression on me and seemed to me so significant that I had to think of it again and again, and I fancied it was intended just for me because it was meant symbolically at the same time and referred to my husband.
Please don’t be angry if I venture to speak again about the “manifest content” of your talk.
I wanted to ask then if you are sure that your children would not be helped by analysis.
One certainly cannot be the child of a great man with impunity, considering the trouble one has in getting away from ordinary fathers.
And when this distinguished father also has a streak of paternalism in him, as you yourself said!
Didn’t the fracture of your son’s leg fit in with this picture?
When I asked you about it you said you didn’t have time to analyse your children’s dreams because you had to earn money so that they could go on dreaming.
Do you think this attitude is right?
I would prefer to think that one should not dream at all, one should live.
I have found with Carl also that the imperative “earn money” is only an evasion of something else to which he has resistances.
Please forgive me this candour, it may strike you as brazen; but it disturbs my image of you because I somehow cannot bring it into harmony with the other side of your nature, and this matters so much to me. – The thought also occurred to me that it was perhaps on our account that you didn’t send your son to study in Zurich; you did speak about it at one time and for us it would naturally have been a great pleasure to see him now and then.
Another thing I must mention is your resignation in science, if one can call it that.
You may imagine how overjoyed and honoured I am by the confidence you have in Carl, but it almost seems to me as though you were sometimes giving too much-do you not see in him the follower and fulfiller more than you need?
Doesn’t one often give much because one wants to keep much?
Why are you thinking of giving up already instead of enjoying your well-earned fame and success?
Perhaps for fear of letting the right moment for it pass you by?
Surely this will never happen to you.
After all, you are not so old that you could speak now of the “way of regression,” what with all these splendid and fruitful ideas you have in your head!
Besides, the man who has discovered the living fountain of PS, a. (or don’t you believe it is one?) will not grow old so quickly.
No, you should rejoice and drink to the full the happiness of victory after having struggled for so long.
And do not think of Carl with a father’s feeling: “He win grow, but I must dwindle,” but rather as one human being thinks of another, who like you has his own law to fulfill.
Don’t be angry with me.
With warm love and veneration,
Emma Jung ~Freud/Jung Letters, Pages 455-57.
[Emma Jung: “You were really annoyed by my letter, weren’t you?”]
From Emma Jung
Dear Professor Freud, Kiisnacht, 14 November [1911]
You were really annoyed by my letter, weren’t you? I was too, and now I am cured of my megalomania and am wondering why the devil the unconscious had to make you, of all people, the
victim of this madness.
And here I must confess, very reluctantly, that you are right: my last letter, specially the tone of it, was really directed to the father-imago, which should of course be faced without fear.
This thought never entered my head; I thought that, knowing the transference side of my father-attitude towards you, it would all be quite clear and do me no harm.
After I had thought so long before writing to you and had, so I believed, fully understood my own motives, the unconscious has now played another trick on me, with particular finesse: for you can imagine how delighted I am to have made a fool of myself in front of you.
I can only pray and hope that your judgment will not prove too severe.
There is one thing, however, I must vigorously defend myself against, and that is the way you take my “amiable carpings,” as you call them.
Firstly I do not mean at all that Carl should set no store by your opinion; it goes without saying that one recognizes an authority, and if one cannot it is only a sign of over-compensated insecurity.
So that is not what I mean, it was only the rest of it that made him anxious and uncertain which seemed superfluous to Inc.
Truth to tell, I must confess that I have missed the mark here too, without suspecting it.
Lately Carl has been analysing his attitude to his work and has discovered some resistances to it.
I had connected these misgivings about Part II with his constant worry over what you would say about it, etc.
It seemed out of the question that he could have resistances to his own work; but now it appears that this fear of your opinion was only a pretext for not going on with the self-analysis which this work in fact means, I realize that I have thus projected something from my immediate neighbourhood into distant Vienna and am vexed that it is always the nearest thing that one sees worst.
You have also completely misunderstood my admittedly uncalled-for meddling in your family affairs.
Truthfully I didn’t mean to cast a shadow on your children.
I know they have turned out well and have never doubted it in the least.
I hope you don’t seriously believe that I wanted to say they were “doomed to be degenerate.”
I have written nothing that could even remotely mean anything of the sort.
I know that with your children it is a matter of physical illnesses, but just wanted to raise the question whether these physical symptoms might not be somehow psychically conditioned, so that there might for instance be a reduced power of resistance.
Since I have made some very astonishing discoveries in myself in this respect and do not consider myself excessively degenerate or markedly hysterical, I thought similar phenomena possible with other people too.
I shall be grateful for enlightenment.
That you should think it worthwhile to discuss your most personal affairs with me is something for which I thank you with all my heart.
What you tell me sounds so convincing that I simply have to believe it, although much in me struggles against it.
But I must admit that you have the experience and I do not, consequently I am unable to make any convincing rejoinders.
You are quite right about one thing, though: despite everything and everybody, the whole affair is only a blessing in clumsy disguise which I beg you to forgive.
Please write nothing of this to Carl; things are going badly enough with him as it is.
Emma Jung
[Emma Jung: “Will you advise me, dear Herr Professor, and if necessary dress me down a bit?”]
From Emma Jung
My dear Professor Freud, Kusnacht, 24 November 1911
Heartfelt thanks for your letter.
Please don’t worry, I am not always as despondent as I was in my last letter.
I was afraid you were angry with me or had a bad opinion of me; that was what made me so downhearted, especially because my main complex was hit.
Usually I am quite at one with my fate and see very well how lucky I am, but from time to time I am tormented by the conflict about how I can hold my own against Carl.
I find I have no friends, all the people who associate with us really only want to see Carl, except for a few boring and to me quite uninteresting persons.
Naturally the women are all in love with him, and with the men I am instantly cordoned off as the wife of the father or friend.
Yet I have a strong need for people and Carl too says I should stop concentrating on him and the children, but what on earth am I to do?
What with my strong tendency to autoerotism it is very difficult, but also objectively it is difficult because I can never compete with Carl.
In order to emphasize this I usually have to talk extra stupidly when in company.
I do my best to get transferences and if they don’t turn out as I wished I am always very depressed.
You will now understand why I felt so bad at the thought that I had lost your favour, and I was also afraid Carl might notice something.
At any rate he now knows about the exchange of letters, as he was astonished to see one of your letters addressed to me; but I have revealed only a little of their content.
Will you advise me, dear Herr Professor, and if necessary dress me down a bit?
I am ever so grateful to you for your sympathy.
With warmest greetings to you and yours,
Emma Jung ~Freud/Jung Letters Page 467.
From Emma Jung
Dear Professor Freud, Kusnacht, 10 September [1912]
The offprints of Part II of “Transformations and Symbols” have just come out and you must be the first to receive one.
From Jones, whom I met at the Congress here, I heard that Frau Hollitscher is ill again.
I was so sorry to hear this and find it especially sad that her and all your hopes have again come to nothing.
I share your sorrow and your worry with heartfelt sympathy and I hope, and wish, that everything will soon take a good turn.
How are your wife and the other children?
We had a dismal summer too; the children had whooping cough and now measles; Carl was away nearly all summer; since Saturday he has been on the trip to America after spending only one day here between military service and departure.
I have so much to do now that I can’t let too much libido travel after him to America, it might so easily get lost on the way.
Please greet all your dear ones from me and give my best wishes to your daughter.
With kindest and highest regards,
Emma Jung ~Freud/Jung Letters, Page 514.