Question

What contribution to our thinking about abnormal behavior did Freud and Breuer make?

Answer 1

Freud and Breuer together exmained the case of Anna O. Anna O. was a bright, attractive, 21-year-old woman who had a variety of symptoms associated with hysteria. At one time or another, she had experienced paralysis of the arms or legs, disturbances of sight and speech, memory loss, and general mental disorientation. Breuer hypnotized the young woman and then asked her to recall the circumstances under which she first experienced a particular symptom. For example, one symptom was the perpetual squinting of her eyes. Through hypnosis, Breuer discovered that she had been required to keep a vigil by the bedside of her dying father. The woman’s deep concern for her father had brought tears to her eyes so that when the weak man asked her what time it was she had to squint to see the hands of the clock. Breuer discovered that each time he traced a symptom to its origin, which was usually some traumatic experience, the symptom disappeared either temporarily or permanently. One by one, Anna O’s symptoms were relieved int his way.It was as if certain emotionally laden ideas could not be expressed directly but instead manifested themselves in physical symptoms. When such pathogenic ideas were given conscious expression, their energy dissipated, and the symptoms they initiated disappeared.Because relief followed the emotional release, Breuer called the treatment the cathartic method.Aristotle originally used the term catharsis (from theGreek katharsis, which means “to purify”) to describe the emotional release and the feeling of purification that anaudience experienced as they viewed a drama. Anna O. called the method the “talking cure.” Breuer’s treatment of Anna O. started in December 1880 and continued until June 1882. During that time, Breuer typically saw her several hours each day. Soon after treatment started, Anna O. began responding to Breuer as if he were her father, a process later called transference. All emotions Anna had once expressed toward her father, both positive and negative, she now expressed toward Breuer. Breuer also began developing emotional feelings toward Anna, a process later called countertransference. Because of the excessive amount of time involved and because his emotional involvement in the case began to negatively impact his marriage and his other professional obligations. Breuer decided to terminate his treatment of Anna O.  Breuer and Freud published Studies on Hysteria (1895/1955), in which the case of Anna O. was the first presented, in 1895, and that date is usually taken as the date of the official founding of the school of psychoanalysis.

In Studies on Hysteria (1895/1955), Breuer and Freud put forth a number of the basic tenets of psychoanalysis. They noted that hysteria is caused by a traumatic experience that is not allowed adequate expression and therefore manifests itself in physical symptoms. Therefore, symptoms could be taken as symbolic representations of an underlying traumatic experience that is no longer consciously available to the patient. Because such experience is traumatic, it is repressed—that is, actively held in the unconscious because to ponder it would provoke anxiety. Resistance, then, is a sign that the therapist is on the right track. Repression also often results from conflict, the tendency both to approach and to avoid something considered wrong. The fundamental point is that repressed experiences or conflicts do not go away. Rather, they go on exerting a powerful influence on a person’s personality. The only way to deal with repressed material properly is to make it conscious and thereby deal with it rationally. For Freud, the most effective way of making repressed material conscious is through free association. By carefully analyzing the content of free associations, gestures, and transference, the analyst could determine the nature of the repressed experience and help the patient become aware of it and deal with it. Thus, in Studies on Hysteria, Freud clearly outlined his belief in the importance of unconscious motivation. Freud and Breuer wrote separate conclusions to the book, and Freud emphasized the role of sex in unconscious motivation. At the time, Freud contended that a person with a normal sex life could not become neurotic.