‘No’ In Hysteria

From October 1885 to February 1886, Freud worked at the Salpetriere in Paris under Charcot. Freud was very impressed by Charcot's Tuesday lectures where he presented amongst others his fascinating, seductive, hysterical patient called Blanche. Freud was fascinated by Charcot-Blanche and by the impact of the hypnotic approach which allowed the patient to express herself. In fact Blanche Wittmann, Charcot's ‘prima donna’, had a double personality. Pierre Janet, one of the attendants, was interested in the splitting of her personality and he used to think that Blanche Two was more balanced than Blanche One; a sort of inner rivalry?

Freud had already been impressed by Breuer's treatment of Fraulein Anna 0 between 1880 and 1882. The treatment of Anna 0 finished in June 1882, and in the following November Breuer related the remarkable story to Freud who was greatly impressed by it.

When Freud arrived back in Vienna from Paris in 1886, and settled down with his practice, a large proportion of his clientele were hysterics. At that time he used to recommend hydrotherapy, electrotherapy, massage and the Weir Mitchell rest-cure. Freud, impressed by Charcot and Dr Liebeault from Nancy in Bernheim's clinic, tried to use hypnosis on those patients. This method did not last long with Freud because he was aware that his personality was not sufficiently adapted to this method, in addition to other reasons that he discovered during the birth and early development of his psychoanalytic theory and practice.

Some years ago I was asked to write on hysteria for an important Italian encyclopedia (Enciciopedia Einaudi).

Hysterical phenomena were described in the Kahun papyrus (1900) as a woman's illness provoked by the spontaneous displacement of the uterus which behaves like a confused little animal wandering inside the body. The image of the ‘wandering uterus’ corresponds to a very archaic fantasy which Hippocrates takes up in the chapter of his book entitled ‘Women's illn