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When Freud and Breuer collaborated with Anna O. in the late nineteenth century in an attempt to remove a severe conversion hysteria syndrome from which Anna O. was suffering, the latter referred to the psychological assistance that she received as “the talking cure.” Through putting into words her feelings, thoughts, and memories, Anna O. was able to overcome many of her hysterical symptoms.
Although it was early in the development of psychoanalysis that an understanding of the pathological resistances inherent in hysterias and the other neuroses was achieved, the hysteria that the psychoanalytic movement activated in the lay community has far from abated. Perhaps it is more than coincidence that again we have two men and a woman collaborating to help the public overcome their hysterical reactions, phobias, and distorted perceptions of the psychoanalytic process.
The Talking Cure deals sensitively and meaningfully with what may be termed the patient's pre-analytic resistances, an area which has received only limited consideration in the literature. The early chapters, for example, discuss some facts and fallacies about psychoanalysis including the stereotypes of the analyst, psychoanalysis as the destroyer of marriage, Freud and sex, and falling in love with the analyst. The book performs a commendable service in differentiating for the reader the essential differences between psychoanalysis and other disciplines such as casework, pastoral counselling, group psychotherapy. The highlights and limitations of psychoanalysis and the psychoanalyst are presented with the same candor and objectivity as are other therapies and therapists.
Psychoanalysts who read The Talking Cure will appreciate a chapter entitled “Choosing the Analyst.” In addition to helping the prospective patient check on the qualifications of a potential analyst and what his training should include, the question of lay versus medical analysis is dispassionately appraised. Perhaps shedding more light and ge