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The earliest origins of psychoanalysis can be traced to Freud's concepts of emotion. Freud (1895) saw Anna O.'s symptoms as originating mainly in her emotional reactions while nursing her father in his terminal illness. Anna O. could not abide her hateful feelings and thoughts, intentionally put them out of her mind, and thereupon developed a whole range of symptoms including mental confusion, severe disturbances of vision, involuntary muscular contractions, peculiarities of speech, and partial paralysis. When hypnotized by Breuer, Anna O. was able to recall the traumatic incidents and she achieved a remission of symptoms. Her reenactment and discharge of pent up emotions was termed a catharsis through abreaction, a kind of purging of traumatic feelings, and it still is prevalent today in cases of traumatic neurosis.
Freud (1925) later described Anna O.'s symptoms as “residues or reminiscences of those emotional situations [of nursing],” and said that she was relieved of symptoms when “she was induced to express in words the affective phantasy …” and did so “with a free expression of emotions” (p. 20). Freud continually wrote of