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The diary of an 18 year-old, perhaps like that of any adolescent, is a kind of soliloquy or narcissistic retreat in which an attempt is made to converse with oneself in a space
inhabited by one's internal objects. It is, then, a form of introversion that resembles a neurosis, but one which also bears a resemblance to the temporal unfolding of any creative process that seeks to reveal itself before a potential third party: the reader. Eloísa Castellano-Maury, psychoanalyst and writer, writer and psychoanalyst, offers the reader a tale which adds an aesthetic layer to a general psychological truth about the hysterical personality, as well as to another possible and particular truth regarding the Dora case. Her work thus forms part of the artistic and literary tradition that, since the time of Freud himself, has so often been recognized for its efficacy in capturing and expressing ‘deep’ truths.
This book comprises 25 chapters, whose brevity is consistent with the kind of ‘notes’ one normally associates with a diary, along with an epilogue and an addendum. Throughout the supposed diary, it is Ida Bauer's voice we hear as she shares her intimate thoughts from between analytic sessions with Sigmund Freud, and thus we are introduced to ‘father’, ‘mother’, ‘Otto’ (her brother), Kobo and Kristel (Herr and Frau K), and Mademoiselle and Gerda (governesses) as they are woven into a plot marked by desire, frustration, resentment, seduction, falsehood and ‘double standards’, all of which fits perfectly with Freud's opinion of ‘Civilized’ sexual morality and modern nervous illness (1908); other figures also appear, such as Gustav Klimt (the painter), Sosonga (the daughter of the forest guard), Uncle Lazlo, her cousin Gisela, Fritz (who offers himself as an ideal suitor for Ida), and Freud, as well as places that belong both to memory and the present day: Vienna, Berggasse 19 and the surrounding area. The epilogue and the addendum serve as a counterpo