Carl Jung: I avoid the treatment of such cases as much as possible.

To Louis S. London

My dear Dr. London, 24 September 1926

I suppose the news you heard of my successes in the treatment of Dementia praecox is greatly exaggerated.

As a matter of fact I only treated a limited number of cases, and these were all what one might call in a liquid condition, that is to say, not yet congealed.

I avoid the treatment of such cases as much as possible.

It is true they can be treated, and even with the most obvious success, but such a success costs almost your own life.

You have to make the most stupendous effort to reintegrate the dissociated psychic entities, and it is by no means a neat and simple technique which you can apply, but a creative effort together with a vast knowledge of the unconscious mind.

These are not merely big words but simple statements of the actual truth.

It is not too easy to cure a neurosis, but to cure a case on the borderline of D.P. is worse.

Moreover the treatment of D.P. [Dementia Praecox] is entirely based upon the empirical knowledge gained from the neuroses.

Therefore if you want to know anything about the treatment of D.P. you ought to begin with the study of the analytical treatment in
general. ...

Yours sincerely,

C.G. Jung ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. I, Page 45