Bertha Pappenheim 1882
Bertha Pappenheim is better known as Anna O, the ‘founding patient’ of psychoanalysis. Brought up within the confines of a privileged but repressive Orthodox Jewish family in Vienna, she had little scope in her early adulthood for the expression of the talents which she was to manifest in her later life.
In the summer of 1880, her father fell ill with tuberculous pleuritis. During the following months Bertha helped to nurse him and developed a number of symptoms herself (cough, visual disorders, paralysis in various parts of the body, hallucinations, aphasia, erratic behaviour, altered states of consciousness). A doctor, Josef Breuer, diagnosed hysteria and treated her using hypnotic techniques, a controversial procedure at the time.
Breuer, who visited Bertha every day, discovered that when Bertha had the opportunity to talk while in a hypnotic state her condition was alleviated somewhat.
However, after the death of her father in April 1881 her condition, particularly the mental phenomena, worsened. She made several attempts at suicide and was hospitalised. The ‘talking cure’ – now so-called by Bertha – continued and Breuer came to the conclusion that if, under hypnosis, she talked about one of her symptoms, tracing all occurrences of it back to its first appearance, the symptom then disappeared.
This purported discovery, ie, the possibility of eliminating a symptom by the elucidation of its psychological origin, was the germ of what was later to develop into psychoanalysis.
Some time after terminating the treatment in 1882, Dr Breuer discussed the case with his friend, Sigmund Freud, who began to treat hysterical patients in a similar manner. The case of Anna O (the pseudonym used for Bertha Pappenheim) is the first study described in Studies in Hysteria, one of the founding texts of psychoanalysis, published jointly by Freud and Breuer in 1895.
Although Breuer claimed that Anna O was cured, subsequent research has revealed that this was not the case and that Bertha Pappenheim spent several years in a very wretched condition, with recurrence of her symptoms and spells of hospitalisation.
At the time, neuroscience was in its infancy and the diagnosis of hysteria was often applied to symptoms which would now be identified as of organic origin. More recent suggestions for the origin of Bertha Pappenheim’s illness include tuberculous meningitis, intracranial tuberculoma and temporal lobe epilepsy.
Bertha Pappenheim later went on to achieve prominence as a pioneer social worker, fighting for women’s rights. She founded the League of Jewish Women in 1904, set up a home for unmarried mothers and led an international campaign against the exploitation of young Jewish women for prostitution.
In the summer of 1880, her father fell ill with tuberculous pleuritis. During the following months Bertha helped to nurse him and developed a number of symptoms herself (cough, visual disorders, paralysis in various parts of the body, hallucinations, aphasia, erratic behaviour, altered states of consciousness). A doctor, Josef Breuer, diagnosed hysteria and treated her using hypnotic techniques, a controversial procedure at the time.
Breuer, who visited Bertha every day, discovered that when Bertha had the opportunity to talk while in a hypnotic state her condition was alleviated somewhat.
However, after the death of her father in April 1881 her condition, particularly the mental phenomena, worsened. She made several attempts at suicide and was hospitalised. The ‘talking cure’ – now so-called by Bertha – continued and Breuer came to the conclusion that if, under hypnosis, she talked about one of her symptoms, tracing all occurrences of it back to its first appearance, the symptom then disappeared.
This purported discovery, ie, the possibility of eliminating a symptom by the elucidation of its psychological origin, was the germ of what was later to develop into psychoanalysis.
Some time after terminating the treatment in 1882, Dr Breuer discussed the case with his friend, Sigmund Freud, who began to treat hysterical patients in a similar manner. The case of Anna O (the pseudonym used for Bertha Pappenheim) is the first study described in Studies in Hysteria, one of the founding texts of psychoanalysis, published jointly by Freud and Breuer in 1895.
Although Breuer claimed that Anna O was cured, subsequent research has revealed that this was not the case and that Bertha Pappenheim spent several years in a very wretched condition, with recurrence of her symptoms and spells of hospitalisation.
At the time, neuroscience was in its infancy and the diagnosis of hysteria was often applied to symptoms which would now be identified as of organic origin. More recent suggestions for the origin of Bertha Pappenheim’s illness include tuberculous meningitis, intracranial tuberculoma and temporal lobe epilepsy.
Bertha Pappenheim later went on to achieve prominence as a pioneer social worker, fighting for women’s rights. She founded the League of Jewish Women in 1904, set up a home for unmarried mothers and led an international campaign against the exploitation of young Jewish women for prostitution.