Sigmund Freud skriver til sin venn Wilhelm Fliess om en pasient som har vært på besøk, og som har det mye bedre

Sigmund Freud skriver til sin venn Wilhelm Fliess i Berlin (her gjengitt på engelsk -- origianlen er på tysk):

"E. at last concluded his career as a patient by coming to dinner at my house. His riddle is almost completely solved; he is in excellent shape, his personality entirely changed. At present a remnant of the symptoms is left. I am beginning to understand that the apparent endlessness of the treatment is something that occurs regularly and is connected with the transference. I hope that this remnant will not detract from the practical success.

I could have continued the treatment, but I had the feeling that such a prolongation is a compromise between illness and health that patients themselves desire, and the physician must therefore not accede to it.

The asymptotic conclusion of the treatment basically makes no difference to me, but is yet one more disappointment to outsiders. In any case I shall keep an eye on the man. Since he had to suffer through all my technical and theoretical errors, I actually think that a future case could be solved in half the time. May the Lord now send this next one. (...)

Occasionally something stirs toward a synthesis, but I am holding it down. Otherwise Vienna is Vienna, that is, extremely disgusting.

If I closed with "Next Easter in Rome," I would feel like a pious Jew. So I say rather, "Until we meet in the summer or fall in Berlin or where you will."

(Masson, 1985, s. 408-409).