Richard Skues conducts: Freud and ‘Anna O.’. Inner Circle Seminar 129 (22 June 2008)

Bertha Pappenheim (‘Anna O.’)

Freud and ‘Anna O.’

Reopening a Closed Case

Richard Skues
conducts
Inner Circle Seminar No. 129
introduced by
Anthony Stadlen
Sunday 22 June 2008
10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

For her work in the later part of her life Bertha Pappenheim became celebrated as a feminist writer and social worker. But from 1880 to 1882, as an unknown young Viennese Jewish woman, she had been treated for hysteria by Freud’s mentor Josef Breuer, and as ‘Anna O.’ she was the famous ‘first patient’ of psychoanalysis whose treatment paved the way for Freud’s subsequent work. In recent years many historians of psychoanalysis have come to view this case as a failure, casting doubt on the very foundations of psychoanalysis, and Breuer’s case study has been criticised and ‘corrected’ for more than half a century by leading advocates and adversaries of psychoanalysis, starting with Freud himself. But Dr Richard Skues, in his book Sigmund Freud and the History of Anna O., provides an unparalleled review of the available evidence on the case and reaches new conclusions about its outcome, which pose a radical challenge to existing historical scholarship. Today he presents his controversial findings for discussion.
 

Venue: Regent’s College, Inner Circle, Regent’s Park, London NW1
Cost: Students £88, others £110, some bursaries, IN ADVANCE
Apply to: Anthony Stadlen, ‘Oakleigh’, 2A Alexandra Avenue, London N22 7XE
Tel: +44 (0) 20 8888 6857 E-mail: stadlen@aol.com