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 procure some alleviation? We live in the present, but with the ideas and ideals of the future. That is our conflict. How resolve it?

IV

From Dr. Jung. 4th February, 1913.

You have put me in some perplexity by the questions in your yesterday’s letter. You have rightly grasped the spirit which dictated my last. I am glad you, too, recognise this spirit. There are not very many who can boast of such tolerance. I should deceive myself if I regarded my standpoint as that of a practical physician. First and foremost I am a scientist; naturally that gives me a different outlook upon many problems. In my last letter I certainly left out of count the doctor’s practical needs, but chiefly that I might show you on what grounds we might be moved to relinquish hypnotic therapy. To remove the first objection at once, let me say that I did not give up hypnotism because I desired to avoid dealing with the basic motives of the human soul, but rather because I wanted to battle with them directly and openly. When once I understood what kind of forces play a part in hypnotism I gave it up, simply to get rid of all the indirect advantages of this method. As we psychoanalysts see regretfully every day—and our patients also—we do not work with the “transference to the doctor” but against it and in spite of it. It is just not upon the faith of the sick man that we can build, but upon his criticism. So much would I say at the outset upon this delicate question.

As your letter shows, we are at one in regard to the theoretical aspect of treatment by suggestion. So we can now apply ourselves to the further task of coming to mutual understanding about the practical question.

Your remarks on the physician’s dilemma—whether to be