118: Standard Edition Volume 2 Part 7: Studies on Hysteria, Part VII: Fräulein Elisabeth von R Teaser

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Abby and Patrick arrive at the final case study in Freud and Breuer's Studies on Hysteria: the case of Fräulein Elisabeth von R. The case of this unfortunate young woman, literally hobbled by a conversion disorder affecting her gait, is neither particularly famous nor fraught with the controversies or large-than-life historical of previous cases in this series. Yet despite its superficially banal setting and seemingly low stakes, it's also Freud's single most complete and thoroughly documented case in the Studies and thus offers a fantastic chance to observe Freud as a clinician at his most earnest and dogged. And it is precisely the very ordinariness of Elisabeth von R's own life, and the fundamentally relatable details of her suffering, that makes this case study the perfect place to put Freud's developing ideas about the family, the body, time, loss, symbolization, change, and therapeutic cure into our own words. In the first of what will be several episodes on this case study, Abby and Patrick take up Elizabeth von R's story, and Freud's narration of it, by reading closely, tracking the richness of Freud's prose, and fleshing out the yearnings, disappointments, expectations, and frustrations that brought this young woman to seek Freud's care.

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