Swales on Cäcilie M. part 1
From “Freud’s Master Hysteric” (1986):
Freud treated a patient “Cäcilie M.” from 1887 through 1893, about six years of the patient’s general treatment from 1867 until her death 1900 (33 years of treatment). The real name of Cäcilie M. is Anna von Todesco, later Anna von Lieben. Freud tells us that “his patient [Cäcilie M.] was handed over to him for treatment ‘because no one knew what to do with her’ - as if to imply, then, that probably everything had been tried during the thirty or so years of her illness but that no one had had any success in curing her” (27).
Cäcilie M’s symptoms included: “severe facial neuralgia; pains in the feet such as made walking impossible; and a penetrating pain in the forehead between her eyes,” “gaps in her memory,” “self-reproaches from bygone times” (24); “pathological state of moodiness - involving anxiety, irritation, or despair - which she would regularly attribute to some more or less trivial recent event,” “obsessive and tormenting hallucination,” and at times “total incapacitation, even ‘imbecility’” (25)
“Freud understood all of Frau Cäcilie’s states and symptoms to be products of psychic traumas dating from far back in her past” (24). “Freud set himself to unravel many highly intricate and complex trains of thought - Frau Cäcilie’s associations often involving pictures, symbols, and puns” (25). Freud claimed to have found her traumatic memories corresponding to symptoms in patterned ways, which is called “hysterical conversion” (26). The pain between the patient’s eyes was attributed to a traumatic “piercing look” she received in the past, and the patient’s foot pain was attributed to a traumatic time when she couldn’t find herself “on a right footing” (26).
To Cäcilie M.’s family Freud “was ‘der Zauberer,’ the ‘magician,’ come to put their mother into a trance yet again and to accompany her through her fits of ravings, screamings, and long declamatory speeches” (32). “Freud would be called upon twice a day: and, over a period of three or four years, he participated in ‘several hundred’ such cycles” (25). Swales believes that “having seen that the treatment was bringing no permanent improvement, the family intervened and, probably with Breuer’s agreement, brought it to a halt” (33).
Lacanians and Kantians may also find this post on J-A Miller's understanding of a psychoanalytic philosophical anthropology interesting.
Freud treated a patient “Cäcilie M.” from 1887 through 1893, about six years of the patient’s general treatment from 1867 until her death 1900 (33 years of treatment). The real name of Cäcilie M. is Anna von Todesco, later Anna von Lieben. Freud tells us that “his patient [Cäcilie M.] was handed over to him for treatment ‘because no one knew what to do with her’ - as if to imply, then, that probably everything had been tried during the thirty or so years of her illness but that no one had had any success in curing her” (27).
Cäcilie M’s symptoms included: “severe facial neuralgia; pains in the feet such as made walking impossible; and a penetrating pain in the forehead between her eyes,” “gaps in her memory,” “self-reproaches from bygone times” (24); “pathological state of moodiness - involving anxiety, irritation, or despair - which she would regularly attribute to some more or less trivial recent event,” “obsessive and tormenting hallucination,” and at times “total incapacitation, even ‘imbecility’” (25)
“Freud understood all of Frau Cäcilie’s states and symptoms to be products of psychic traumas dating from far back in her past” (24). “Freud set himself to unravel many highly intricate and complex trains of thought - Frau Cäcilie’s associations often involving pictures, symbols, and puns” (25). Freud claimed to have found her traumatic memories corresponding to symptoms in patterned ways, which is called “hysterical conversion” (26). The pain between the patient’s eyes was attributed to a traumatic “piercing look” she received in the past, and the patient’s foot pain was attributed to a traumatic time when she couldn’t find herself “on a right footing” (26).
To Cäcilie M.’s family Freud “was ‘der Zauberer,’ the ‘magician,’ come to put their mother into a trance yet again and to accompany her through her fits of ravings, screamings, and long declamatory speeches” (32). “Freud would be called upon twice a day: and, over a period of three or four years, he participated in ‘several hundred’ such cycles” (25). Swales believes that “having seen that the treatment was bringing no permanent improvement, the family intervened and, probably with Breuer’s agreement, brought it to a halt” (33).
Lacanians and Kantians may also find this post on J-A Miller's understanding of a psychoanalytic philosophical anthropology interesting.