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Freud, the pioneer explorer of the mysterious world of transference; Dora, the patient who illuminated both Freud's genius and his limitations; and turn-of-the-century Vienna, which produced and shaped this historically linked pair: these are the subjects of Hannah Decker's masterful psychological, historical, and sociological study.
This is the story of the problems and limitations that the treatment of Dora brought to light as Freud struggled with his own methodology, theory, and technique in the infant science of psychoanalysis. But it is also the story of Dora, and the society that contributed to her condition-Vienna, the extraordinary city where polyglot culture and social structure add contrast, shading, and illumination to the protagonists.
The author seeks to render Dora “an historical figure in her own right.” In this pursuit, she acquaints us with Dora's personal history and her reltionship to a world that seemed to promise her so much but in fact contributed to her illness, rage, and despair. The unsuccessful and unresourceful womanhood she attained was symptomatic of her being “a prisoner of her time in every way.”
Turn-of-the-century Vienna saw great movements of social change. Public attitudes were loosening toward Jews, women, education, and social opportunities for many who would have been shunned a generation earlier. The promise of these changes, however, was matched by the all-too-virulent backlashes that erupted against progress in all of these areas. For every advance in the European Jew's status, an anti-Semitic backlash, often violent, occurred. For every educational opportunity that opened up, and equally repressive cultural tradition constrained the advance or limited it by gender.
The daughter of a properous Jewish middle-class family, Dora (her real name was Ida Bauer) spent her childhood years surrounded by the illnesses of both of her parents and other adults, and eventually came to define her own life by the illnesses the afflicated her. As