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,"[180] 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 magician or scientist—bring us to the heart of the discussion. I strive to be no fanatic—although there are not a few who reproach me with fanaticism. I contend not for the application of the psychoanalytic method solely and at all costs, but for the recognition of every method of investigation and treatment. I was a medical practitioner quite long enough to realise that practice obeys, and should obey, other laws than does the search after truth. One might almost say practice must first and foremost submit to the laws of opportunism. The scientist does great injustice to the practitioner if he reproaches him for not using the "one true" scientific method. As I said to you in my last letter: "A truth is a truth, when it works." But on the other hand, the practitioner must not reproach the scientist if in his search for truth and for newer and better methods, he makes trial of unusual ways. After all, it is not the practitioner but the investigator, and the latter's patient, who will have to bear any injury that may arise. The practitioner must certainly use those methods which he knows how to use to greatest advantage, and which give him the best relative results. My tolerance, indeed, extends, as you see, even to Christian Science. But I deem it most uncalled for that Frank, a practising doctor, should depreciate research in which he cannot participate, and particularly the very line of research to which he owes his own method. It is surely time to cease this running down of every new idea. No one asks Frank and all whom he represents to become psychoanalysts; we grant them the right to their existence, why should they always seek to cut ours short?
As my own "cures" show you, I do not doubt the effect of suggestion. Only I had the idea that I could perhaps discover something still better. This hope has been amply justified. Not for ever shall it be said—
"The good attained is oft of fairer still
The enemy, calling it vain illusion, falsehood's snare."