Dora: An Analysis of a Case of Hysteria (Collected Papers of Sigmund Freud) (Paperback)

by Sigmund Freud (Author), Philip Rieff (Introduction) "In 1895 and 1896 I put forward certain views upon the pathogenesis of hysterical symptoms and upon the mental processes occurring in hysteria..." (more)
Key Phrases: somatic compliance, unconscious phantasies, unconscious phantasy, Drei Abhandlungen, Additional Note, Die Traumdeutung (more...)

Product Details

• Paperback: 144 pages
• Publisher: Touchstone (November 1, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0684829460
• ISBN-13: 978-0684829463
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.4 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #71,938 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An analysis of Freud, June 8, 2004

By	foundpoem - See all my reviews

Freud: brilliant and flawed, and without whom we'd have none of his detractors. We can see the ways Freud was a "poor" therapist. Some of his treatment styles would now be considered, at best, amoral; at worst, illegal. But he is essential to the foundation of psychotherapy. Without his theories (and opponents), we wouldn't have it at all. He is a fascinating, great scientist and innovator. His focus, also, is borne of its time, Victorian, and many of his theories predicated on from where *he* comes and what he saw in his patients - repression, for example.

Definitely read, if interested, Freud's description of his theories - his theories of both psychology and treatment.

But the case studies are imperative. You can read all about Oedipus or dreams or the Id, but you won't SEE what he did, the analyst he was, until you read a case study. Anna O., Dora, Emmy - any of them. It's nearly mandatory to see Fread-at-work in order to understand *his* implementation of his thoughts.

I don't suggest you put out of your mind, if you have them, negative thoughts of Freud, his life, or his treatment styles, but to place him in history. In my opinion he is the Daddy of them all. I am not a Freudian, but I am in love with Freud. I think he made egregious errors in his treatment of patients and, today, untried methods wouldn't be revered, or even implemented at all, this way. We also wouldn't know they are "errors" if not for books like this. But this is it, in its raw form, and from his point of view - the way of Freud. So, disagree, find him quixotic, a breaker of rules we take as a given (such as confidentiality), but read the case studies.

Without the case studies, you've got theory and description but not the action, the meat of his treatment. Plus, it's great reading. It's not like plodding through a book you think you should read - it's short and it's "simple," yet not simplistic; it's full of what he did. Him in action. An analysis of Freud, as much as of Dora.

7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars watching the detectives, May 19, 2000

By	Walter Fekete (Houston, TX) - See all my reviews

By now it's fairly common knowledge that the side of Freud's work concerned with actual practice is, to understate the case, problematic. He is a brilliant thinker, and a beautiful writer, but his need to find the "truth" of his patients is quixotic at best. However, this very quality makes the Dora case one of the first great modern novels. What is revealed is not so much Dora's truth, as the unravelling of the position of interpretive authority - in this case, the psychoanalyst. Freud imagines himself absent from his analysis, but we see him intrude more and more into the frame as he investigates the secrets of Dora's mind. In this way, the story reads like detective fiction, making evidence less anchored in a tangible structure as it becomes more intent and focused. It's a great, juicy read. Just don't take it to seriously.

6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Through a glass darkly, December 22, 2003

By	A. Sebastian Catala "Chany Catala" (Wallingford, CT United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

It's Dora's Sapphic longings for Frau K the guileful force in this brief but brilliant tour-de-force. In 1900 Sigmund Freud writes in his puzzling 'Dora an Analysis of a Case of Hysteria' that a girl of eighteen appears in his consulting office in Vienna suffering from insomnia aphonia and a nagging cough. Soon the celebrated psychoanalyst sets out in a search that would pale Sherlock Holmes. A shady psychiatric personae soon unfold. The doctoral sleuth is suspicious Dora's sexual wanting of her father, a prosperous industrialist, is at the root of her chronic sore throat bewilderment compulsive cough and general listlessness. But on the couch a fascinating couple promptly enter en scene. It's Herr K (dramatic cast is known only in code) a satyr-cuckold making sexual passes at Dora. His wife Frau K is meanwhile carrying a surreptitious affair with Dora's father, thus, at first, to Freud, Dora's rival. After some painful analysis and the interpretation of two dreams Freud soon reveals, with the elan of a seasoned novelist, the elusive dark truth. Sigmund Freud has found another alarming psychiatric discovery. The clever naturalist can now triumphantly prick his pin through his butterfly. In Tennessee Willaims' 'Cat on a Hot Tin Roof' the disclosure of the protagonist's forbidden homosexual urges is the key in a hushed but healing ending. In Williams' morbid 'Suddenly Last Summer' it's the savage recollection of Sebastian's voracious pederasty that explode in a healing and stunning finale. At last bringing catharsis to the heroine's temporary madness. Through a glass darkly. But this moral transcendence is not allowed Dora since she flees her psychoanalysis before there can be any hope of cure. Her denouement only another greedy trance in Freud's vast mind. Dora exists forum prematurally but her analyst has discovered nevertheless that in her psychic androgyny it was the languid Frau K Dora truly desired. Please notice how I contrast 'An Analysis of a Case of Hysteria' with dark poetic cinema since I find in Dora moving thematic potential. As a visionary I've weighed this intoxicating Freudian allure for the screen. Though Freud closes with a vague explanation one never really knows what happened to Dora. I've picked up Freud not always successfully finding 'The Interpretation of Dreams' lengthly episodic and often inscrutable (my fault not Freud's) Though have enjoyed 'Totem and Taboo' 'The Future of an Illusion' etc. In luckily finding 'Dora' I knew I had discovered a literary masterpiece a rare blend of medical writing doubling as genial whodunit. If you like mysteries this is the text for you Sigmund Freud's unforgettable study on bisexuality. Poor Fraulein Dora, like Racine's Phaedre, coughing and moaning and gasping and sighing a slave to a lust in where there can't be a happy ending. It doesn't tale long to read this little book great for trains or seashore. A few unique pages filled with excitement. I often wonder whether Dora really existed or was a figment in Freud's fancy. Elementary! lets give Dora five stars.