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Dora: Frammento di un'analisi d'isteria
«Ero giunto alla conclusone che il racconto di Dora dovesse assolutamente corrispondere al vero. Una volta capite le intenzione del signor K., ella non lo aveva lasciato finir di parlare, l'aveva schiaffeggiato ed era fuggita. All'uomo era rimasto solo, la condotta di Dora apparve allora non meno incomprensibile di quanto appare a noi; da molto tempo infatti egli doveva aver concluso, da innumerevoli piccoli indizi, che poteva essere certo dell'inclinazione della ragazza per lui.»
«Con questa pubblicazione tanto incompiuta ho voluto raggiungere due scopi. In primo luogo integrare il mio precedente libro sull'interpretazione dei sogni... In secondo luogo ho voluto destare interesse per una serie di rapporti ancor oggi assolutamente ignorati dalla Scienza... Forse nessuno aveva potuto avere prima d'ora un'idea esatta della complessità dei processi psichici nell'isteria, della coesistenza dei moti più diversi, della connessionereciproca dei contrari, delle rimozioni e degli spostamenti e così via.»Sigmund Freud
127 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1905
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About the author
Sigmund Freud
4,371 books8,508 followersDr. Sigismund Freud (later changed to Sigmund) was a neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, who created an entirely new approach to the understanding of the human personality. He is regarded as one of the most influential—and controversial—minds of the 20th century.
In 1873, Freud began to study medicine at the University of Vienna. After graduating, he worked at the Vienna General Hospital. He collaborated with Josef Breuer in treating hysteria by the recall of painful experiences under hypnosis. In 1885, Freud went to Paris as a student of the neurologist Jean Charcot. On his return to Vienna the following year, Freud set up in private practice, specialising in nervous and brain disorders. The same year he married Martha Bernays, with whom he had six children.
Freud developed the theory that humans have an unconscious in which sexual and aggressive impulses are in perpetual conflict for supremacy with the defences against them. In 1897, he began an intensive analysis of himself. In 1900, his major work 'The Interpretation of Dreams' was published in which Freud analysed dreams in terms of unconscious desires and experiences.
In 1902, Freud was appointed Professor of Neuropathology at the University of Vienna, a post he held until 1938. Although the medical establishment disagreed with many of his theories, a group of pupils and followers began to gather around Freud. In 1910, the International Psychoanalytic Association was founded with Carl Jung, a close associate of Freud's, as the president. Jung later broke with Freud and developed his own theories.
After World War One, Freud spent less time in clinical observation and concentrated on the application of his theories to history, art, literature and anthropology. In 1923, he published 'The Ego and the Id', which suggested a new structural model of the mind, divided into the 'id, the 'ego' and the 'superego'.
In 1933, the Nazis publicly burnt a number of Freud's books. In 1938, shortly after the Nazis annexed Austria, Freud left Vienna for London with his wife and daughter Anna.
Freud had been diagnosed with cancer of the jaw in 1923, and underwent more than 30 operations. He died of cancer on 23 September 1939.
In 1873, Freud began to study medicine at the University of Vienna. After graduating, he worked at the Vienna General Hospital. He collaborated with Josef Breuer in treating hysteria by the recall of painful experiences under hypnosis. In 1885, Freud went to Paris as a student of the neurologist Jean Charcot. On his return to Vienna the following year, Freud set up in private practice, specialising in nervous and brain disorders. The same year he married Martha Bernays, with whom he had six children.
Freud developed the theory that humans have an unconscious in which sexual and aggressive impulses are in perpetual conflict for supremacy with the defences against them. In 1897, he began an intensive analysis of himself. In 1900, his major work 'The Interpretation of Dreams' was published in which Freud analysed dreams in terms of unconscious desires and experiences.
In 1902, Freud was appointed Professor of Neuropathology at the University of Vienna, a post he held until 1938. Although the medical establishment disagreed with many of his theories, a group of pupils and followers began to gather around Freud. In 1910, the International Psychoanalytic Association was founded with Carl Jung, a close associate of Freud's, as the president. Jung later broke with Freud and developed his own theories.
After World War One, Freud spent less time in clinical observation and concentrated on the application of his theories to history, art, literature and anthropology. In 1923, he published 'The Ego and the Id', which suggested a new structural model of the mind, divided into the 'id, the 'ego' and the 'superego'.
In 1933, the Nazis publicly burnt a number of Freud's books. In 1938, shortly after the Nazis annexed Austria, Freud left Vienna for London with his wife and daughter Anna.
Freud had been diagnosed with cancer of the jaw in 1923, and underwent more than 30 operations. He died of cancer on 23 September 1939.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 289 reviews
November 18, 2021
I only read this so I could learn more about how women were controlled and contained under the label of, and driven to, insanity, by a repressive, sexist, homophobic society in 19th century Europe. And boy did Freud deliver.
July 5, 2008
Dora, Freud’s case study on Ida Bauer, is an account of the three months he spent treating a young woman said to be suffering from "hysteria" (hee hee). The case study, however, reads not like a dry account of therapeutic interactions between doctor and patient but rather more like a story full of foreshadowing and satisfactory (if not frustrating) connections drawn between disparate details. Even Freud admits that he wrote with hope of publication in mind and made alterations to “the order in which the explanations are given…for the sake of presenting the case in a more connected form” (Freud, 1905, p. 4). In other words, though Freud claimed he altered “nothing of any importance,” the impetus behind his alterations was to create a more readable, more accessible – but not necessarily more accurate – case history.
A critical reader will likely walk away with the impression that Freud is less concerned with how well his methods work than he is that they seem to work -- a self-serving desire certainly not unique to Freud. Freud delights in drawing connections and making inferences based on seemingly insignificant details that later, based on his careful presentation, appear at least somewhat logical. Knowing Freud as most who would read him likely do, readers may occasionally laugh/grumble/curse at Freud’s predictable tendency to attribute everything seemingly pathological to unconscious drives of sex and aggression. Even Dora herself rolls her eyes at this consistent tendency when Freud attempts to analyze one of her dreams – when he draws an analogy between the jewelry box in Dora’s dream and female genitalia, Dora responds, “I knew you would say that” (p. 61).
Freud is also quite careful, in that crafty analyst way, to cover his backside at every turn, criticizing the critics before they criticize him and reminding us that this treatment was cut short and would probably have been successful had it continued. Moreover, the very nature of Freudian analysis sometimes presents an unassailable façade of logistical traps such as Freud’s disappointing assertion that Dora’s “no” actually means “yes.” At another point, he actually writes, “I will pass over the details which showed how entirely correct all of this [earlier interpretation] was” (p. 35). Again and again, Freud attempts to silence both Dora and his readers by predicting and destroying her and our protestations before we have even had the opportunity to voice them. In theory, we as readers have already been primed by Freud to believe that Dora is virtually incapable of understanding her own motivations (hence the “no” means “yes” problem) and that when she disagrees with him she is merely cloaking the disturbing truth in more repression. After all, Dora is a woman suffering from life-long hysteria and so her opinion is therefore the unreliable one. Nicely played, Dr. Freud.
When it comes to Freud and contemporary readers, however, everyone’s a critic. It’s my feeling that the often under-informed, hypercritical perspective with which many approach Freud’s work blinds them to the essential and lasting contributions he has made to the field of psychology. While one can reasonably consider many of Freud’s notions arrogant, insulting, sexist, bigoted, and wholly without merit, certain others, such as the unconscious, defense mechanisms, and some elements of his psychosexual stages (on which others have developed more palatable explanations of development) are Freud’s contributions as well. I mean, don't you think your hatred of Freud seems a little, well, hysterical?
In your face, naysayers!
A critical reader will likely walk away with the impression that Freud is less concerned with how well his methods work than he is that they seem to work -- a self-serving desire certainly not unique to Freud. Freud delights in drawing connections and making inferences based on seemingly insignificant details that later, based on his careful presentation, appear at least somewhat logical. Knowing Freud as most who would read him likely do, readers may occasionally laugh/grumble/curse at Freud’s predictable tendency to attribute everything seemingly pathological to unconscious drives of sex and aggression. Even Dora herself rolls her eyes at this consistent tendency when Freud attempts to analyze one of her dreams – when he draws an analogy between the jewelry box in Dora’s dream and female genitalia, Dora responds, “I knew you would say that” (p. 61).
Freud is also quite careful, in that crafty analyst way, to cover his backside at every turn, criticizing the critics before they criticize him and reminding us that this treatment was cut short and would probably have been successful had it continued. Moreover, the very nature of Freudian analysis sometimes presents an unassailable façade of logistical traps such as Freud’s disappointing assertion that Dora’s “no” actually means “yes.” At another point, he actually writes, “I will pass over the details which showed how entirely correct all of this [earlier interpretation] was” (p. 35). Again and again, Freud attempts to silence both Dora and his readers by predicting and destroying her and our protestations before we have even had the opportunity to voice them. In theory, we as readers have already been primed by Freud to believe that Dora is virtually incapable of understanding her own motivations (hence the “no” means “yes” problem) and that when she disagrees with him she is merely cloaking the disturbing truth in more repression. After all, Dora is a woman suffering from life-long hysteria and so her opinion is therefore the unreliable one. Nicely played, Dr. Freud.
When it comes to Freud and contemporary readers, however, everyone’s a critic. It’s my feeling that the often under-informed, hypercritical perspective with which many approach Freud’s work blinds them to the essential and lasting contributions he has made to the field of psychology. While one can reasonably consider many of Freud’s notions arrogant, insulting, sexist, bigoted, and wholly without merit, certain others, such as the unconscious, defense mechanisms, and some elements of his psychosexual stages (on which others have developed more palatable explanations of development) are Freud’s contributions as well. I mean, don't you think your hatred of Freud seems a little, well, hysterical?
In your face, naysayers!
November 5, 2017
There's something innately offputting about reading texts for school as opposed to pleasure. Often, particularly with stuff like this, you're encouraged to read it as an artefact instead of a book or text, proper. You can't really critique Freud; his place is assured/everyone already hates him. Sex isn't the be-all end-all, Siggy, thanks, we get it. What more is there to say, really? It's like reviewing Shakespeare -- unless you get weirdly personal (which, I mean, ya know I got no problems with lol), what's the point?
Dora is weird. I read a fair bit of Freud in my undergrad like ten years ago, and I don't really remember it, but I definitely don't remember it being like this. Even as it's fairly interesting to read, it's also quite obviously strangely personal. Freud fixates on Dora, whether as person or exemplification of his theories, in a way that not only deprives her of any agency, but the narrative of any objective stance. So it gets weird, fast, and because Dora left without a real conclusion to the therapy, Freud just keeps the weird going untethered. His dream interpretations are totally literary, and I am now going to use them to show my students what not to do in their essays (so, like, good for something, at least). But that's the thing too, right, about artefacts -- Freud is so fucking influential in literary criticism and theory. You can't read him without thinking about the legacy he's left.
Anyway, in the end, it was a frustrating but valuable read, if only as a part of a curiosity cabinet. Oh, and for Dora's MAD SNARK. Qween.
Dora is weird. I read a fair bit of Freud in my undergrad like ten years ago, and I don't really remember it, but I definitely don't remember it being like this. Even as it's fairly interesting to read, it's also quite obviously strangely personal. Freud fixates on Dora, whether as person or exemplification of his theories, in a way that not only deprives her of any agency, but the narrative of any objective stance. So it gets weird, fast, and because Dora left without a real conclusion to the therapy, Freud just keeps the weird going untethered. His dream interpretations are totally literary, and I am now going to use them to show my students what not to do in their essays (so, like, good for something, at least). But that's the thing too, right, about artefacts -- Freud is so fucking influential in literary criticism and theory. You can't read him without thinking about the legacy he's left.
Anyway, in the end, it was a frustrating but valuable read, if only as a part of a curiosity cabinet. Oh, and for Dora's MAD SNARK. Qween.
October 16, 2007
In many ways, Freud's article on Dora reveals him at his worst: bullying, arrogant, presumptuous, and insensitive. In other ways, we see a more noble Freud--someone who listens to his patient, in particular a female patient, for hours and hours on end; someone who is willing to lay aside many (though far from all) of his society's taboos and rigid rules of conduct in order to imagine alternative ways of envisioning sexuality, human relationships, and our emotions; and someone who is willing to take risks and make mistakes. Certainly, this case study is a very fascinating document.
October 12, 2014
Freud at his worst bullying a young woman into believing her depression and disgust at being harassed by an older married man is really her secret desire to be taken by him ... disturbing. Freud seems to be the crazier person in the room.
November 26, 2008
Freud is a genius and a quack, a genius of quackery.
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February 19, 2010In the words of Un: 1 star or 5 stars? 1 star or 5 stars? Filled with hatred for this book, but I think that's saying something. And about 2/3 of what Freud writes about poor Dora is insane bordering on defamatory, but then that other 1/3...
Also, hilariously! All of these sort of psychological theories that are extrapolated in Dora are so deeply a part of contemporary culture--science and social science, literature, music, art, history, POP culture--that these terms and ideas have become a kind of shorthand. To see Freud laboring at them so ceremoniously is sort of like a weird hilarious skit? I'm like, OH, FREUD, LOLZ!
Anyway THANK GOD FOR CARL GUSTAV
Also, hilariously! All of these sort of psychological theories that are extrapolated in Dora are so deeply a part of contemporary culture--science and social science, literature, music, art, history, POP culture--that these terms and ideas have become a kind of shorthand. To see Freud laboring at them so ceremoniously is sort of like a weird hilarious skit? I'm like, OH, FREUD, LOLZ!
Anyway THANK GOD FOR CARL GUSTAV
May 27, 2015
Freud! You crazy fuck!
Let's start with the crown jewel: On pg 66 Freud commences a page-and-a-half diatribe about the repugnance of blowjobs. If I may summarize:
"I know what some of my readers are thinking -- blowjobs are super gross! Yeah, I know, right? But like, I'm way too much of a professional to believe that, because we have to approach these PERVERTS within the context of their OUTRAGEOUS MISUSES OF MUCUS MEMBRANE. And you know, the Greeks? Their society was superior in cultivation (?) to ours, and they were super gay all the time."
Another favorite, this one a direct quote from pg 97: "It is well known that gastric pains occur especially often in those who masturbate."
Can't argue with good science like that.
Those were funny, but some of his analyses were just... dark. From what I extracted, she would probably be called Histrionic today, or Borderline; sweet Dora lied and manipulated, ran the Munchausen gamut, etc. You couldn't expect less from her, considering the web of infidelity and resentment in which she spent her formative years.
"He tried to kiss me even though he's a grown-ass man and I'm fourteen."
"Yeah but you probably totally wanted him to, deep down. B/c of your father."
AND THEN THE DREAM! The dream interpretation was golden.
"The house was on fire and my Dad woke me up to say I WONT LET MY CHILDREN BE DESTROYED BY BURNING and he saved my jewelry box and we went outside"
How did Big Siggy spin this one?
"Everything is the opposite of everything else, this time. The fire represents your bedwetting, and also the moisture in your genitals. The jewelry box, likewise, represents... your genitals. Your father represents the creepy dude who tried to kiss you, who, in turn, represents your father in your waking unconscious mind because you totally wanted him to kiss you because you love your father. Aaaaand -- oh yeah, the DESTRUCTION part? That was your father forbidding you from masturbating."
You can just picture this poor girl lying on his couch with an expression of confused horror on her face.
Although, for Freud? Not much talk of dicks! Pretty much only the reference to her psychosomatic sore throat, allegedly caused by the repression of the aforementioned super-icky blowjob desire.
The foundation of psychology, ladies and gentlemen.
Let's start with the crown jewel: On pg 66 Freud commences a page-and-a-half diatribe about the repugnance of blowjobs. If I may summarize:
"I know what some of my readers are thinking -- blowjobs are super gross! Yeah, I know, right? But like, I'm way too much of a professional to believe that, because we have to approach these PERVERTS within the context of their OUTRAGEOUS MISUSES OF MUCUS MEMBRANE. And you know, the Greeks? Their society was superior in cultivation (?) to ours, and they were super gay all the time."
Another favorite, this one a direct quote from pg 97: "It is well known that gastric pains occur especially often in those who masturbate."
Can't argue with good science like that.
Those were funny, but some of his analyses were just... dark. From what I extracted, she would probably be called Histrionic today, or Borderline; sweet Dora lied and manipulated, ran the Munchausen gamut, etc. You couldn't expect less from her, considering the web of infidelity and resentment in which she spent her formative years.
"He tried to kiss me even though he's a grown-ass man and I'm fourteen."
"Yeah but you probably totally wanted him to, deep down. B/c of your father."
AND THEN THE DREAM! The dream interpretation was golden.
"The house was on fire and my Dad woke me up to say I WONT LET MY CHILDREN BE DESTROYED BY BURNING and he saved my jewelry box and we went outside"
How did Big Siggy spin this one?
"Everything is the opposite of everything else, this time. The fire represents your bedwetting, and also the moisture in your genitals. The jewelry box, likewise, represents... your genitals. Your father represents the creepy dude who tried to kiss you, who, in turn, represents your father in your waking unconscious mind because you totally wanted him to kiss you because you love your father. Aaaaand -- oh yeah, the DESTRUCTION part? That was your father forbidding you from masturbating."
You can just picture this poor girl lying on his couch with an expression of confused horror on her face.
Although, for Freud? Not much talk of dicks! Pretty much only the reference to her psychosomatic sore throat, allegedly caused by the repression of the aforementioned super-icky blowjob desire.
The foundation of psychology, ladies and gentlemen.
April 6, 2020
"هرکس که، مانند من، شرورترین آن ارواح نیمه آرام شده که در سینه انسان سکنی دارند را احضار مینماید، و در پی دست و پنجه نرم کردن با آنان بر میآید، نمیتواند انتظار داشته باشد نبرد را بی آسیب بسر برد."
درسته فروید نازنین
April 30, 2014
One thing is for sure, Freud could never have been a General Practitioner. "OK young lady, so you've obviously got psychosomatic abdominal pain and a cough with elective mutism." (Another nutter!). "My guess is that your mother has OCD about cleanliness because your dad caught syphilis from a prostitute and he is having an open affair with his best friend's wife whose husband tried twice to sexually assault you, which, although you didn't realise it at the time, you enjoyed it. And by the way it's all your fault because you've tacitly allowed the affair to continue because you're actually in love with all three. Therefore your pain is expressed through somatic symptoms that reflect your unconscious sexual desires and if you hadn't played with your jewellery box when you were a child none of this would have happened. However, I don't have time to discuss this in 10 minutes as I'm only paid if I take your blood pressure and ask about contraception. I'm sure when you get a steady boyfriend your own age everything will be fine. Take this Fluoxetine instead. Next!"
June 8, 2009
Again, annoying from a feminist perspective but really interesting.
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April 13, 2021Dora e indragostita de tată. Ba nu, e de soțul amantei tatălui. Ba nu, de amanta tatălui. 😅
Oh, Freud!
Oh, Freud!
August 16, 2012
One thing about Freud's case studies: you won't be bored. Dora reads like a novella (though gets redundant in some spots) - though if you don't have at least 5-10 "double-yoo tee eff, Freud?!?!" moments in the course of reading, I'd be seriously concerned.
I believe it's important to read Freud - I've heard some colleagues (who are high school psychology teachers) talk of cutting him out of their courses because he's not current enough, and his ideas aren't relevant to society or our students. Which is kind of like saying historical studies in general aren't necessary - because Freud offers readers insight into the genesis of contemporary social perceptions of sexuality, homo- and bi-sexuality (the WTF moments to end all WTF moments when Freud addresses these, to be sure), the therapist-patient relationship - psychology today may be post-Freudian in practice, but his role as a turn-of-the-century cultural icon hasn't failed to leave a legacy for psych folks and lay-people alike.
I believe it's important to read Freud - I've heard some colleagues (who are high school psychology teachers) talk of cutting him out of their courses because he's not current enough, and his ideas aren't relevant to society or our students. Which is kind of like saying historical studies in general aren't necessary - because Freud offers readers insight into the genesis of contemporary social perceptions of sexuality, homo- and bi-sexuality (the WTF moments to end all WTF moments when Freud addresses these, to be sure), the therapist-patient relationship - psychology today may be post-Freudian in practice, but his role as a turn-of-the-century cultural icon hasn't failed to leave a legacy for psych folks and lay-people alike.
March 23, 2016
الهستيريا من أكثر الألغاز التي أجد نفسي مدفوعة إليها نظراً لشدة انفعالاته و تحولاته الغريبة.. هذا الإرتباط القائم ما بين اعتلال العقل و اعتلال الجسد يجعلني صغيرة جداً صغيرة جداً صغيرة جداً أمام تعقيد النفس البشرية
أنا مؤمنة تماماً كما يؤمن فرويد أنه لابد من انتهاك بعض الخطوط الحمراء في خدمة البشرية و العلم.. رغم أن فرويد هتك السرية القائمة ما بينه وبين مريضته إلا أنني أرى بضرورة ذلك في الأوساط العلمية فقط..
فكرة أن طبيب يذيع على الملأ أدق التفاصيل عن حياة مريضته الجنسية والعائلية مخيفة جداً حتى وإن كان تحت اسم مستعار.. كيف تجرأ فرويد على فعل ذلك و غامر بسمعته؟
الكتاب بالنسبة لي ممتع جداً لأني أحب التفتيش في دواخل الإنسان وتقلباته النفسية لكن هممم كان غير ناضج ويفتقر للكثير
أنا مؤمنة تماماً كما يؤمن فرويد أنه لابد من انتهاك بعض الخطوط الحمراء في خدمة البشرية و العلم.. رغم أن فرويد هتك السرية القائمة ما بينه وبين مريضته إلا أنني أرى بضرورة ذلك في الأوساط العلمية فقط..
فكرة أن طبيب يذيع على الملأ أدق التفاصيل عن حياة مريضته الجنسية والعائلية مخيفة جداً حتى وإن كان تحت اسم مستعار.. كيف تجرأ فرويد على فعل ذلك و غامر بسمعته؟
الكتاب بالنسبة لي ممتع جداً لأني أحب التفتيش في دواخل الإنسان وتقلباته النفسية لكن هممم كان غير ناضج ويفتقر للكثير
July 18, 2014
If there's one thing I can say about Freud, it's that I would hate it tremendously if he were to be my psychoanalyst during the 1900s. It seemed that everything Dora did was done because she was thinking about sex. It's almost like saying I must secretly want to be a prostitute if I accidentally stepped on a piece of gum and tried to remove it from my shoe with a penny. That's how absolutely ridiculous his findings were. And what's worse? He published this analysis without completing Dora's "treatment," whatever that was. So of course, this is an unfinished work, but Freud is so sure of himself in his analysis of Dora that he continued to create these theories about a woman he actually knew nothing about.
Dora is eighteen at the time of this analysis. She began to wet the bed at the age of six and continued to do so until she came down with what I believe to be asthmatic symptoms and a chronic cough that would get so bad that she would sometimes lose her voice. She claimed to have a vaginal discharge and would, at times, succumb to abdominal pains. Honestly, wetting the bed at such a young age is normal and I knew someone who wet the bed until he was nine. It's nothing new. I really did think she suffered from asthma and the coughing might have been a light pulmonary tuberculosis, which is what her father had suffered from at one point in time, that might have never became a dangerous risk due to immunity adaptation. Vaginal discharge is a completely normal thing for any woman who has gone through puberty, and abdominal pains? Sounds like cramps to me. Yet Freud believes otherwise. She had "an addiction to bed-wetting," which was "evidence" that she had discovered masturbation in childhood. She has breathing problems because she is sexually aroused. She has throat problems because she secretly wishes to give oral sex. She has vaginal discharge because she masterbates. And she has abdominal pains because she is sexually attracted to a man who at times becomes ill as well. Do you see now why Freud's analysis is ridiculous? Even Dora knew this because she always detested Freud's theories. If a person were truly sick, they would want to get better and therefore would say yes to treatment, but throughout his "treatment" of psychoanalyzing Dora, Dora wanted nothing to do with him, which is why she cut him off so early on.
Freud believed that Dora was in love with her father. I love my father, but I am not in love with him. There is a huge difference, yet the latter is what Freud believed of Dora. Her father was in an affair with another woman, whom Dora was jealous of for receiving her father's attentions. This is normal for a child to be angry at a woman for tearing her father from her family, but not only did Freud believe that she was jealous of the woman, but that she also had homosexual fantasies of her. He never gives an explanation as to why he believes this specifically, or at least I couldn't find anything that would give him such an idea. He also believed that Dora was in love with and sexually attracted to her father's mistress's husband. However, when this husband sexually assaults her by kissing her without her permission, Dora runs away. Dora also takes naps in a certain room in their shared family's lake house. Once, after taking a nap, she awakes to find this husband in front of her - watching her. She then asks to have a key to her room so such a thing would not happen again. Unfortunately, the next day, her key is missing and she guesses that he took it. This is potential sexual predator behavior. How on earth can Freud believe that she holds a sexual attraction for this man?
Years after Dora's psychoanalysis, she comes back and tells Freud of her "progress." She confronts her father's mistress by letting her know that she knew of their affair. She never saw them again and she got married to a kindly man. Honestly I'm extremely proud of Dora as much as I'm also extremely disappointed in Freud, who believed that she quit his "treatment" early because she wanted revenge on her father's mistress's husband and therefore had a transference that led to loving and yet wanting revenge on Freud. Really? She quit his treatment because he was a madman, no question there.
I think this book, although ridiculous, is rather an important read. It gives insight into psychology of the 1900s. It is interesting how people thought back then. However, I was disappointed in not knowing more about hysteria than I already did. Hysteria was strictly a woman's disease which was seemingly invented my misogynistic men. "In a whole series of cases the hysterical neurosis is nothing but an excessive overaccentuation of the typical wave of repression through which the masculine type of sexuality is removed and the woman emerges." Instead, this book was mostly about a girl and her affairs with the important people in her life and not necessarily about the disorder itself. Freud's "treatment" was psychoanalysis, which was also disappointing. Anyone can listen to a person's life and tell them what they thought about their life, but how do you treat said life?
Dora is eighteen at the time of this analysis. She began to wet the bed at the age of six and continued to do so until she came down with what I believe to be asthmatic symptoms and a chronic cough that would get so bad that she would sometimes lose her voice. She claimed to have a vaginal discharge and would, at times, succumb to abdominal pains. Honestly, wetting the bed at such a young age is normal and I knew someone who wet the bed until he was nine. It's nothing new. I really did think she suffered from asthma and the coughing might have been a light pulmonary tuberculosis, which is what her father had suffered from at one point in time, that might have never became a dangerous risk due to immunity adaptation. Vaginal discharge is a completely normal thing for any woman who has gone through puberty, and abdominal pains? Sounds like cramps to me. Yet Freud believes otherwise. She had "an addiction to bed-wetting," which was "evidence" that she had discovered masturbation in childhood. She has breathing problems because she is sexually aroused. She has throat problems because she secretly wishes to give oral sex. She has vaginal discharge because she masterbates. And she has abdominal pains because she is sexually attracted to a man who at times becomes ill as well. Do you see now why Freud's analysis is ridiculous? Even Dora knew this because she always detested Freud's theories. If a person were truly sick, they would want to get better and therefore would say yes to treatment, but throughout his "treatment" of psychoanalyzing Dora, Dora wanted nothing to do with him, which is why she cut him off so early on.
Freud believed that Dora was in love with her father. I love my father, but I am not in love with him. There is a huge difference, yet the latter is what Freud believed of Dora. Her father was in an affair with another woman, whom Dora was jealous of for receiving her father's attentions. This is normal for a child to be angry at a woman for tearing her father from her family, but not only did Freud believe that she was jealous of the woman, but that she also had homosexual fantasies of her. He never gives an explanation as to why he believes this specifically, or at least I couldn't find anything that would give him such an idea. He also believed that Dora was in love with and sexually attracted to her father's mistress's husband. However, when this husband sexually assaults her by kissing her without her permission, Dora runs away. Dora also takes naps in a certain room in their shared family's lake house. Once, after taking a nap, she awakes to find this husband in front of her - watching her. She then asks to have a key to her room so such a thing would not happen again. Unfortunately, the next day, her key is missing and she guesses that he took it. This is potential sexual predator behavior. How on earth can Freud believe that she holds a sexual attraction for this man?
Years after Dora's psychoanalysis, she comes back and tells Freud of her "progress." She confronts her father's mistress by letting her know that she knew of their affair. She never saw them again and she got married to a kindly man. Honestly I'm extremely proud of Dora as much as I'm also extremely disappointed in Freud, who believed that she quit his "treatment" early because she wanted revenge on her father's mistress's husband and therefore had a transference that led to loving and yet wanting revenge on Freud. Really? She quit his treatment because he was a madman, no question there.
I think this book, although ridiculous, is rather an important read. It gives insight into psychology of the 1900s. It is interesting how people thought back then. However, I was disappointed in not knowing more about hysteria than I already did. Hysteria was strictly a woman's disease which was seemingly invented my misogynistic men. "In a whole series of cases the hysterical neurosis is nothing but an excessive overaccentuation of the typical wave of repression through which the masculine type of sexuality is removed and the woman emerges." Instead, this book was mostly about a girl and her affairs with the important people in her life and not necessarily about the disorder itself. Freud's "treatment" was psychoanalysis, which was also disappointing. Anyone can listen to a person's life and tell them what they thought about their life, but how do you treat said life?
January 15, 2022
Steven Marcus compares Freud’s analysis of Dora to a “modern
experimental novel.” He maintains that “what Freud has written is in parts rather
like a play by Ibsen, or more precisely like a series of Ibsen’s plays.” In addition,
Freud himself plays a role in this drama; he is “not only Ibsen the creator and
playwright, he is also and directly one of the characters in the action and in the
end suffers in a way that is comparable to the suffering of the others.”
Freud (in his self-construction as a character within his
own narrative) resembles the “unreliable narrator” of
the fiction of the early twentieth century.
experimental novel.” He maintains that “what Freud has written is in parts rather
like a play by Ibsen, or more precisely like a series of Ibsen’s plays.” In addition,
Freud himself plays a role in this drama; he is “not only Ibsen the creator and
playwright, he is also and directly one of the characters in the action and in the
end suffers in a way that is comparable to the suffering of the others.”
Freud (in his self-construction as a character within his
own narrative) resembles the “unreliable narrator” of
the fiction of the early twentieth century.
July 6, 2020
Det sykeste med boka, som inneholder en del tvilsomme antagelser fra Freuds side er etterordet, hvor man får svart på hvitt hvor ufattelig kvinnefiendtlig og upassende Freuds følelser overfor pasienter, og særlig "Dora" var. Hvordan begjæret hans gjorde at han projiserte seg på mannen som voldet Dora så mange vonde følelser, og derfor sier ting som "øøøø, jeg skjønner ikke hvorfor en fjorten år gammel kvinne ikke liker å bli tvangskyssa av en mann som presser delene sine mot henne, er ikke det bare smigrende, da?". Tvilsom fyr!
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September 9, 2024Freud: it's not gaslighting if I interpret your dreams! It's not slut shaming if I do it in your unconscious!!!
October 18, 2025
I don’t know who I’m writing this review for. It’s not like there are throngs of people debating whether to read Fragment of an Analysis of a Case of Hysteria and my review is going to tip the scales one way or another. So I’m writing, I suppose, for myself. Or perhaps I’m writing with the hope that one day somebody — perhaps some undergrad in some country far away from mine, some place like the Czech Republic — will be bored late one night and stumble upon this review, and although he’ll have no inclination to actually read the book, he’ll force his way through it to practice his English.
So, to my late-night undergraduate, let me start by saying that this is some delightful shit — “shit” being one of those strange English words that can refer to literal excrement but also to something wonderfully delightful, something like, say, oral sex or Lucky Charms. Freud writes with the verve and style of the great 19th century novelists. The book’s premise is that he’s providing psychoanalytic treatment to Dora, an eighteen-year-old who has for years suffered from a range of physical symptoms and has been brought to him by her father for help with her more recent depression. Here’s how Freud introduces her:
Dora was by that time in the first bloom of youth — a girl of intelligent and engaging looks. But she was a source of heavy trials for her parents. Low spirits and an alteration in her character had now become the main features of her illness. She was clearly satisfied neither with herself nor with her family; her attitude towards her father was unfriendly, and she was on very bad terms with her mother, who was bent upon drawing her into taking a share in the work of the house. [...] One day her parents were thrown into a state of great alarm by finding on the girl's writing-desk, or inside it, a letter in which she took leave of them because, as she said, she could no longer endure her life.
There’s so much dysfunction surrounding Dora’s bourgeois family. Her father is sleeping with his live-in nurse, Frau K, whose husband, Herr K, has propositioned Dora — declaring his love and forcing a kiss upon her. Dora tells Freud that the kiss filled her with disgust, and she responded by slapping him and running off. When she told her parents, Herr K accused her of being consumed by prurient interests and making the whole thing up, and her father then sided with Herr K! The entire Me Too movement came about to protect women from this kind of horeshit, and your heart can’t help but break for Dora.
Freud, to his credit, believes Dora, but he also recognizes her symptoms as hysteric, meaning that her somatic complaints reflect, not an organic illness, but repressed sexual desire. So while he accepts that the kiss occurred, he spends considerable effort trying to convince her that her disgust masks unconscious feelings of desire.
Peter Gay criticizes Freud for failing to recognize Dora’s “need as an adolescent for trustworthy guidance in a cruelly self-serving adult world — for someone to value her shock at the transformation of an intimate friend into an ardent suitor, to appreciate her indignation at this coarse violation of her trust.” That’s fair. But it’s also true, at least as Freud tells it, that Dora did harbor feelings for Herr K. For all his faults, Freud seems to have had Dora’s best interests in mind and believed that helping her recognize her feelings would resolve her suffering.
Gay also criticizes Freud’s therapeutic method, writing that the “vigorous and voluble interpretations Freud lavished on Dora have a dictatorial air about them.” Agreed, and I would regard any therapist who talked to his patients this way as a bully and, frankly, an asshole. Freud seems so convinced that he’s right that the possibility that he might sometimes be wrong never crosses his mind.
And yet — and yet —
And yet, dear Czech reader, fault him as you might — fault him for sometimes falling into dogmatism, fault him for having the tact of a bull in a china shop (an American idiom describing a preposterous scene that to my knowledge has never actually happened) — but there’s still great wisdom in these pages. Humans, Freud understood — and given what we’ve learned from evolutionary science, it’s hard to disagree — are irredeemably sexual beings, and it doesn’t come as a surprise when we learn that Dora has felt love, not just for Herr K, but also for Frau K, and also for her father, which doesn’t mean that she wants to have intercourse with her father — you can tell all those angry students in your Intro to Psych class that they need to grow up and recognize that he was describing a very natural thing, how children feel natural affection for their parents and how a young girl’s desire to marry daddy, when she doesn’t understand sex and doesn’t understand what marriage entails, is the most natural thing in the world.
Just as Freud’s broader point about human sexuality isn’t anything that science would dispute, his thoughts about the human unconscious, about the multifarious ways in which we unknowingly deceive ourselves, make sense and prove to be incredibly illuminating. Toward the end of treatment, he shares his hunch that Dora had masturbated as a child. By this point she has come to reflexively naysay pretty much everything that comes out of his mouth and basically responds: “Masturbation? Me? Ew — never — gross.” But then a few days later she brings a small handbag to the session, something she’s never done before, and plays with it throughout the hour, “opening it, putting a finger into it, shutting it again, and so on.”
Now that’s sort of a funny scene, and you can say that Freud read too much into it, and you might be right, but also I don’t think Freud’s wrong when he says that our actions, though unconscious, “give expression to unconscious thoughts and impulses.” In other words, you can say you never masturbated, but by unconsciously mimicking the act you might be giving yourself away. Here’s how he puts it:
He that has eyes to see and ears to hear may convince himself that no mortal can keep a secret. If his lips are silent, he chatters with his finger-tips; betrayal oozes out of him at every pore. And thus the task of making conscious the most hidden recesses of the mind is one which it is quite possible to accomplish.
Freud ultimately concluded that he botched the analysis because he had failed to recognize that her transference had changed: she’d shifted from seeing him as a fatherly figure to seeing him as a self-serving suitor. And just as she had taken her revenge on Herr K — not because he had propositioned her but because he stopped propositioning her, thus revealing that his intentions were purely sexual and not also loving — she ended up taking her revenge on Freud, depriving him of the opportunity to heal her. Had he recognized this, he writes, he would have made this conscious and thus helped her to break free from the enactment.
I don’t know how many things Freud got right, but I do know that this is one riveting read. We can put on our moralist hats and criticize him for not being more sensitive, but at the same time I think we need to lighten up. He cared about this young woman and treated her in a way that he thought would alleviate her suffering. He never excused Herr K’s behavior. His point was that Dora was complex — that she could feel genuine disgust and anger alongside longing and desire. Yes, Dora was complex. Humans are complex. And we’re better off that people like Freud entered the fray, risking error and even ridicule, in their effort to understand that complexity.
So, to my late-night undergraduate, let me start by saying that this is some delightful shit — “shit” being one of those strange English words that can refer to literal excrement but also to something wonderfully delightful, something like, say, oral sex or Lucky Charms. Freud writes with the verve and style of the great 19th century novelists. The book’s premise is that he’s providing psychoanalytic treatment to Dora, an eighteen-year-old who has for years suffered from a range of physical symptoms and has been brought to him by her father for help with her more recent depression. Here’s how Freud introduces her:
Dora was by that time in the first bloom of youth — a girl of intelligent and engaging looks. But she was a source of heavy trials for her parents. Low spirits and an alteration in her character had now become the main features of her illness. She was clearly satisfied neither with herself nor with her family; her attitude towards her father was unfriendly, and she was on very bad terms with her mother, who was bent upon drawing her into taking a share in the work of the house. [...] One day her parents were thrown into a state of great alarm by finding on the girl's writing-desk, or inside it, a letter in which she took leave of them because, as she said, she could no longer endure her life.
There’s so much dysfunction surrounding Dora’s bourgeois family. Her father is sleeping with his live-in nurse, Frau K, whose husband, Herr K, has propositioned Dora — declaring his love and forcing a kiss upon her. Dora tells Freud that the kiss filled her with disgust, and she responded by slapping him and running off. When she told her parents, Herr K accused her of being consumed by prurient interests and making the whole thing up, and her father then sided with Herr K! The entire Me Too movement came about to protect women from this kind of horeshit, and your heart can’t help but break for Dora.
Freud, to his credit, believes Dora, but he also recognizes her symptoms as hysteric, meaning that her somatic complaints reflect, not an organic illness, but repressed sexual desire. So while he accepts that the kiss occurred, he spends considerable effort trying to convince her that her disgust masks unconscious feelings of desire.
Peter Gay criticizes Freud for failing to recognize Dora’s “need as an adolescent for trustworthy guidance in a cruelly self-serving adult world — for someone to value her shock at the transformation of an intimate friend into an ardent suitor, to appreciate her indignation at this coarse violation of her trust.” That’s fair. But it’s also true, at least as Freud tells it, that Dora did harbor feelings for Herr K. For all his faults, Freud seems to have had Dora’s best interests in mind and believed that helping her recognize her feelings would resolve her suffering.
Gay also criticizes Freud’s therapeutic method, writing that the “vigorous and voluble interpretations Freud lavished on Dora have a dictatorial air about them.” Agreed, and I would regard any therapist who talked to his patients this way as a bully and, frankly, an asshole. Freud seems so convinced that he’s right that the possibility that he might sometimes be wrong never crosses his mind.
And yet — and yet —
And yet, dear Czech reader, fault him as you might — fault him for sometimes falling into dogmatism, fault him for having the tact of a bull in a china shop (an American idiom describing a preposterous scene that to my knowledge has never actually happened) — but there’s still great wisdom in these pages. Humans, Freud understood — and given what we’ve learned from evolutionary science, it’s hard to disagree — are irredeemably sexual beings, and it doesn’t come as a surprise when we learn that Dora has felt love, not just for Herr K, but also for Frau K, and also for her father, which doesn’t mean that she wants to have intercourse with her father — you can tell all those angry students in your Intro to Psych class that they need to grow up and recognize that he was describing a very natural thing, how children feel natural affection for their parents and how a young girl’s desire to marry daddy, when she doesn’t understand sex and doesn’t understand what marriage entails, is the most natural thing in the world.
Just as Freud’s broader point about human sexuality isn’t anything that science would dispute, his thoughts about the human unconscious, about the multifarious ways in which we unknowingly deceive ourselves, make sense and prove to be incredibly illuminating. Toward the end of treatment, he shares his hunch that Dora had masturbated as a child. By this point she has come to reflexively naysay pretty much everything that comes out of his mouth and basically responds: “Masturbation? Me? Ew — never — gross.” But then a few days later she brings a small handbag to the session, something she’s never done before, and plays with it throughout the hour, “opening it, putting a finger into it, shutting it again, and so on.”
Now that’s sort of a funny scene, and you can say that Freud read too much into it, and you might be right, but also I don’t think Freud’s wrong when he says that our actions, though unconscious, “give expression to unconscious thoughts and impulses.” In other words, you can say you never masturbated, but by unconsciously mimicking the act you might be giving yourself away. Here’s how he puts it:
He that has eyes to see and ears to hear may convince himself that no mortal can keep a secret. If his lips are silent, he chatters with his finger-tips; betrayal oozes out of him at every pore. And thus the task of making conscious the most hidden recesses of the mind is one which it is quite possible to accomplish.
Freud ultimately concluded that he botched the analysis because he had failed to recognize that her transference had changed: she’d shifted from seeing him as a fatherly figure to seeing him as a self-serving suitor. And just as she had taken her revenge on Herr K — not because he had propositioned her but because he stopped propositioning her, thus revealing that his intentions were purely sexual and not also loving — she ended up taking her revenge on Freud, depriving him of the opportunity to heal her. Had he recognized this, he writes, he would have made this conscious and thus helped her to break free from the enactment.
I don’t know how many things Freud got right, but I do know that this is one riveting read. We can put on our moralist hats and criticize him for not being more sensitive, but at the same time I think we need to lighten up. He cared about this young woman and treated her in a way that he thought would alleviate her suffering. He never excused Herr K’s behavior. His point was that Dora was complex — that she could feel genuine disgust and anger alongside longing and desire. Yes, Dora was complex. Humans are complex. And we’re better off that people like Freud entered the fray, risking error and even ridicule, in their effort to understand that complexity.
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November 6, 2019I don't put much stock in Freudian theory, but I was told to read the case studies -- I was told they were fantastic literature.
Well, then I read his case study of Dora, and it really, really, really confirmed all my beliefs about the fundamentally flawed nature of psychoanalytic practice, and some more or less horrifying sexist presumptions of Freud's work (How could that 14 year old girl not like getting hit on by her dad's older buddy? He was a looker! Also, no TOTES means yes, ESPECIALLY from teenagers!).
After finishing Dora, I was ready to decimate the fucker. But... but but but... Freud actually tried, he really did. I get the feeling that he did want to empathize, he did want to help people get better, and he was pretty damn bright, with some of his more theoretical texts seeming to potentially lead to revolutionary ideas. But he is of his time, and I don't feel much need to read any more of his work.
Well, then I read his case study of Dora, and it really, really, really confirmed all my beliefs about the fundamentally flawed nature of psychoanalytic practice, and some more or less horrifying sexist presumptions of Freud's work (How could that 14 year old girl not like getting hit on by her dad's older buddy? He was a looker! Also, no TOTES means yes, ESPECIALLY from teenagers!).
After finishing Dora, I was ready to decimate the fucker. But... but but but... Freud actually tried, he really did. I get the feeling that he did want to empathize, he did want to help people get better, and he was pretty damn bright, with some of his more theoretical texts seeming to potentially lead to revolutionary ideas. But he is of his time, and I don't feel much need to read any more of his work.
August 2, 2020
حالة دورا وتلاعب فرويد نفسياً بها من خلال اقناعها بشيء لا تشعر به دليل على العنف المعنوي الذي يمارسه الرجل على المرأة في القرون السابقة، ومازال يمارس على المرأة الآن. في الكتاب، تأتيها شابة في الثامنة عشر، تعاني من أمراض عضوية نتيجة حالتها النفسية، ويتضح سبب تدهورها النفسي هو تعرضها للتحرش من قِبل صديق العائلة. دورا أعلمت والدها، ووالدها واجه صديقة بالأمر فكذبها. فرويد، بدلاً من معرفة الخلل ومحاولة علاج الفتاة وتصديق قصتها بأنها تعرضت للتحرش، كذبها هو أيضاً، وحاول اقناعها بأن معاناتها ليست بسبب تحرش صديق والدها وإنما نتيجة لرغباتها المتناقضة، مابين رغبتها بصديق والدها ومابين تربيتها الصارمة، التلاعب المعنوي الذي يمارسه فرويد على النساء، لا جديد..فرويد عالم كبير لكن كان أيضاً misogynist :)
دورا لم تقتنع بتحليل فرويد لحالتها وقررت مواجهة متحرشها أمام زوجته ما جعله يعترف بأنها تحرش بها فعلاً.
دورا لم تقتنع بتحليل فرويد لحالتها وقررت مواجهة متحرشها أمام زوجته ما جعله يعترف بأنها تحرش بها فعلاً.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 8, 2011
I went into reading this thinking it would be like the past Freud I have read, which in all cases were all written like a textbook and had so much information and structure I actually had to take notes while reading! But this is totally different and reads more like a story, which it should. A case study about a women (Dora, or Ida Bauer) who suffers from hysteria sounds like such an interesting topic for a novel. But what drew me to this was that this was all real and documented. Not some authors depiction of what a women who has symptoms of Aphonia is like. It's a case study of a real women becoming hysterical, and it was honestly horrifying to read at some points. I could never imagine myself THAT crazy to the point of unmanageable emotional excess.
July 28, 2011
An interesting case history about a young girl. The text is fascinating because it shows us more about Freud and his method than it does about the (relatively unimportant) girl. Freud discusses the techniques he used to interpret his discussions with the girl, and how her psychological condition was strognly linked to the social environment of her home and her parents friends' family. But Freud's narration primarily centers on his process of interpretation and how he came to the conclusions he arrived at with Dora.
June 1, 2023
Reading this showed me Freud is 100x worse than I thought he was! The book is basically 112 pages of how he gaslit a young woman into thinking she was in love with a man who groomed and sexually harassed her. It’s the epitome of victim blaming. Also, Freud’s analysis is crazyyyyy. He is drawing conclusions out of thin air and they are always bonkers. Best part was when he somehow came to the conclusion that Dora wanted to fuck him because she had a dream about a housefire. Like oh my god how is this dude as famous and respected at he is????
January 7, 2013
There are many different ways to interpret this book. One is to see a Twilight-Zone-type twist: is Dora the hysterical young girl, or is Freud?
I wonder if this is a more shocking read now than it was when it was written, and I sincerely have no idea. I don't love it the way I love Civilization and its Discontents, but it is fun. Thinking of teaching it this semester though I do feel a bit intimidated by the prospect...
I wonder if this is a more shocking read now than it was when it was written, and I sincerely have no idea. I don't love it the way I love Civilization and its Discontents, but it is fun. Thinking of teaching it this semester though I do feel a bit intimidated by the prospect...
July 2, 2015
كأنني أقرأ رواية، وفي نفس الوقت رواية بوليسية، وفي نفس الوقت كتاب في التحليل النفسي، المادة ممتعة جدًا.
دورا المصابة بالهستيريا ومحاولة فرويد في استقصاء أعراض الهيستيريا العضوية وربطها في العوامل النفسية اللاشعورية، الموضوع معقد تمامًا.
أعقبه تفسير الحلم الأول والحلم الثاني، وسد فجوات التحليل بذكاء شديد.
الكتاب التالي يجب أن يكون "تفسير الأحلام" أو "ثلاث مباحث في نظرية الجنس".
دورا المصابة بالهستيريا ومحاولة فرويد في استقصاء أعراض الهيستيريا العضوية وربطها في العوامل النفسية اللاشعورية، الموضوع معقد تمامًا.
أعقبه تفسير الحلم الأول والحلم الثاني، وسد فجوات التحليل بذكاء شديد.
الكتاب التالي يجب أن يكون "تفسير الأحلام" أو "ثلاث مباحث في نظرية الجنس".
January 20, 2010
Freud is ridiculous. It's hard to believe that people took him seriously since his interpretations are so out there. I think the interesting thing about his work is that he sees sex everywhere and that his work opens up new kinds of discourse on sex/sexuality.
December 2, 2020
The richest, most infamous, and, to some, most botched case in the history of psychoanalysis is still challenging for one singularly psychoanalytic reason which the other, more superficial, reasons pale beside: Freud's insistence on the importance of the unconscious.
October 16, 2011
Less an analysis of a case of hysteria and more like a portrait of an egotistical bully with a blatant agenda.
January 5, 2023
I love Freud. I wrote my dissertation on Freud (partially). He’s a brilliant thinker, talented writer, engaging storyteller. Do I love psychoanalysis? Not so much. For every brilliant idea Freud contributed to the world of modern Psychology, there are a couple that have aged like sour milk and largely remain, much like Freud himself, a product of their time. Dora gives the reader a clear insight into the appallingly misogynistic nineteenth century - a young woman repeatedly gaslighted, silenced, and persecuted by both her doctor and her father. Freud’s attempts to treat and cure Dora only end up, so tragically, serving to validate a maligned narrative spun by the man who sexually assaults her (her father’s friend, referred to in the text as Herr K). This whole case is, at the best of times, Freud mansplaining a teenage girl’s own traumatic lived experiences to her and, at the very worst of times, enabling the abuse further: he insists that because she did not react favourably to Herr K’s unwanted touch, there must be something dreadfully wrong (“such a kiss by a mature man simply must elicit sexual excitement in a healthy girl of fourteen”) (!!!!!). Freud’s psychoanalytical interpretation of a teenager recoiling from a man in his 40s? That on some deeply unconscious level, she must be secretly in love with him and is repressing it, resulting in hysteria. It’s gross. It is however an excellent case study of Freud’s sexism, his biases, prejudice, and how far his ideas had to go before assimilating to the cultural and political landscape of the twenty-first century — it’s also a great one of ten thousand examples of why being a woman at pretty much any time in history prior to postmodernity was A FLAMING HELLSCAPE. Hélène Cixous once wrote Dora’s case represents “the silent revolt against male power over women's bodies and women's language” and… yeah. Pretty much.
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