Before Freud: Hysteria and Hypnosis in Later Nineteenth-Century Psychiatric Cases

by Lilian R. Furst

Before Freud is an anthology of psychiatric case histories published between 1869 and 1894 by leading medical practitioners: George Beard, Richard Krafft-Ebing, Arthur Schnitzler, Jean-Martin Charcot, and Pierre Janet. Most of the cases are here translated for the first time from German of French. The purpose of the volume is to make available to English-speaking readers primary documents important not only for the history of psychology, but also for an understanding of the literature of the period. A brief introduction outlines the evolution of psychiatry from the eighteenth-century belief in demons through the nineteenth-century search for physical lesions to Freud's recognition of neuroses. Each section opens with a headnote that provides information about its author and his ideas. Mostly the diagnosis is hysteria and the treatment hypnosis. The collection shows where Freud followed his predecessors, and, above all, the major advances he made in the "talking cure." Now retired, Lilian R. Furst is an independent scholar.

207 pages, Hardcover

First published April 30, 2008