Studies On Hysteria (Basic Books Classics) [Paperback]

Joseph Breuer (Author), Sigmund Freud (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0465082769 | ISBN-13: 978-0465082766 | Publication Date: February 25, 2000 | Edition: Reissue

The cornerstone of psychoanalysis—and legacy of the landmark Freud/Breuer collaboration—featuring the classic case of Anna O. and the evolution of the cathartic method, in the definitive Strachey translation. Re-packaged for the contemporary audience with what promises to be an unconventional foreword by Irvin Yalom, the novelist and psychiatrist who imagined Breuer in When Nietzsche Wept.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"If the Studies is not on everybody's list of Great Books, it should be." -- The New York Times

Language Notes

Text: English (translation)
Original Language: German

Product Details

• Paperback: 376 pages
• Publisher: Basic Books; Reissue edition (February 25, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0465082769
• ISBN-13: 978-0465082766
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.5 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #263,945 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The hidden drives beneath hysteria, January 27, 2001

By 

Maurizio Pompili ("Sapienza" University of Rome, Sant'Andrea Hospital, Italy & McLean Hospital - Harvard Medical School, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Studies On Hysteria (Basic Books Classics) (Paperback)

A fascinating book that explores the hidden factors behind anxiety, written when Freud was still studying his first hysterical patients that became famous in the psychoanalytic literature. The collaboration with Breur was actually sealed with this book, but ironically it was also the end of their friendship. Apart from the psychoanalytic concepts, the reader can really enjoy the five case studies included in "Study on hysteria". Only one case study was written by Breur and this goes to show that Freud really wanted to go deep into the unconscious whereas Breur after the first patient didn't go any further; basically because he would have had to confront himself with the patient's sexual drives as well as his instincts. This is a very stimulating book that allows the reader to appreciate the kind of female patients affected by hysteria before the 20th century, that were not understood by most psychiatrists. Freud menaged to understand why the repression of the sexual instinct led to a neurosis.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Should be required reading in public schools, January 28, 2008

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random reader (Long Beach, CA United States) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Studies On Hysteria (Basic Books Classics) (Paperback)

I'm not disputing the first reviewer who gave the book one star because it is a poor translation. Strachey's translation is good enough, though, to make the book readable, and it should be read by everyone. Freud's clarity of thought and insight and pure intelligence is well represented in this book, and it serves as a decent introduction to elementary psychoanalysis.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars THE FOUNDATIONAL WORK OF LATER FREUDIAN PSYCHOLOGY, August 13, 2010

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Steven H. Propp (Sacramento, CA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Studies On Hysteria (Basic Books Classics) (Paperback)

Josef Breuer (1842-1925) was an Austrian physician whose works laid the foundation of psychoanalysis. This collaborative effort was Freud's first book. Here are some representative quotations from the book:

"(E)ach individual hysterical symptom immediately and permanently disappeared when we had succeeded in bringing clearly to light the memory of the event by which it was provoked and in arousing its accompanying affect, and when the patient had described that event in the greatest possible detail and had put the affect into words."
"(One patient) aptly described this procedure, speaking seriously, as a 'talking cure,' while she referred to it jokingly as 'chimney-sweeping.'"
"As regards the symptoms disappearing after being 'talked away,' I cannot use this as evidence; it may very well be explained by suggestion."
"This procedure was one of clearing away the pathogenic psychical material layer by layer, and we liked to compare it with the technique of excavating a buried city."
"Originality is claimed for very little of what will be found in the following pages."
"We describe as conscious those ideas which we observe as active in us, or which we should observe if we attended to them... and if others, apart from those, should be current at the time, we should have to call them unconscious ideas."
"(T)he great majority of severe neuroses in women have their origin in the marrage bed."
"(B)y means of my psychical work I had to overcome a psychical force in the patients which was opposed to the pathogenic ideas becoming conscious (being remembered)."