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reading (Dora: An Analysis of a Case of Hysteria)
I finished Dora this afternoon. I was completely blown away by this analysis. No, I don't think it was a great analytical achievement. I think it was utter and complete misinterpretation. Was Freud considered forward thinking in his time? God, those must have been awful times for women. Yes, he builds some great structures from tiny bits of thread. But they're tiny bits of thread that were extracted over hours of conversation. Where he builds structures of repressed lust, I see a young woman under stress due to a dysfunctional family and having to defend herself against a determined, aggressive predator. He was trying to wear down her resistance, her family was at best ignoring it, at worst facilitating, and she was torn apart by the deceit and breached trust inherent in her living situation.
Freud says that in analysis "No" means "Yes" and everything is it's opposite. If his patient happens to use a word that is within one degree of separation of a word which is slang for a sexual body part it will be interpreted as the body part. Now think about the field day you could have with someone in a two hour conversion under those rules. For instance at one point Dora was relating an incident were she wanted to show a cousin a travel brochure she'd recent received about some resort or other. She went to the closet and got down the container it was stored in. But the container was locked so she said, "Where is the key?" to her mother. Freud saw one degree of separation, the key would open the box. The box is slang for female anatomy, so therefore, Dora was saying "Where is the penis?"
Dora discontinued the therapy before it was complete. Freud describes the last session in detail. As I read it, she knew she wasn't coming back. She didn't argue anymore, she just humored him, smiled, nodded, maybe even egged him on a bit. He felt he'd intellectually triumphed, showing her what she really felt. I think she couldn't be bothered to tell him he was wrong anymore. She went home and confronted the people who were causing her the stress and emotional distress: Herr K., Frau K. and her father.
But the quotes are such lovely misogyny, I'm not I could find better outside a rap song.
Page 75: "The pride taken by women in the appearance of their genitals is quite a special feature of their vanity..." Really? Really? What women, Sigmund? Ok, I'll buy the strippers, but everyday women. No one likes to consider themselves deformed or abnormal, but I've never met a woman who took pride in their squishy bits.
Page 123: (summary paragraph of "General Remarks on Hysterical Attacks") "One may often observe that it is just those girls who in the years before puberty showed a boyish character and inclinations who tend to become hysterical at puberty. In a whole series of cases the hysterical neurosis is nothing but an excessive overaccentuation of the typical wave of repression through which the masculine type of sexuality is removed and the woman emerges." So it isn't that society was trying to stuff lively active women into a role that didn't suit their personalities and they were suffering from stress and emotional difficulties as a result?
There's one bit where Herr K. gets Dora, then 14?, in a room alone, shutters drawn and kisses her. When Dora is disgusted by this Freud attributes the strength of her reaction to self disgust. Self-disgust because he assumes Herr K. had an erection during the embrace, that it pressed against Dora, that this instantly caused Dora to get a corresponding erection (because what else would a girl do when pressed with an engorged member), and felt disgust at her own desire. How about she's disgusted because this is a family friend, someone of the previous generation, who's wife she likes, who's kids she takes care of, who's pushing himself on her?
In a second incident a few years later he propositions her with the same phrases he used to proposition his children's governess (the guy had the class of a 70's pornstar). Her reply is to slap him before he's even finished. Freud has a field day with this incident because Herr K. had made a reasonable proposition and he was, in Freud's words, still "prepossessing". Only Freud and Carl Hiassen can think that some old guy making a outright proposition is automatically going to work with a teenage girl.
28. Sigmund Freud Dora: An Analysis of a Case of Hysteria
Freud says that in analysis "No" means "Yes" and everything is it's opposite. If his patient happens to use a word that is within one degree of separation of a word which is slang for a sexual body part it will be interpreted as the body part. Now think about the field day you could have with someone in a two hour conversion under those rules. For instance at one point Dora was relating an incident were she wanted to show a cousin a travel brochure she'd recent received about some resort or other. She went to the closet and got down the container it was stored in. But the container was locked so she said, "Where is the key?" to her mother. Freud saw one degree of separation, the key would open the box. The box is slang for female anatomy, so therefore, Dora was saying "Where is the penis?"
Dora discontinued the therapy before it was complete. Freud describes the last session in detail. As I read it, she knew she wasn't coming back. She didn't argue anymore, she just humored him, smiled, nodded, maybe even egged him on a bit. He felt he'd intellectually triumphed, showing her what she really felt. I think she couldn't be bothered to tell him he was wrong anymore. She went home and confronted the people who were causing her the stress and emotional distress: Herr K., Frau K. and her father.
But the quotes are such lovely misogyny, I'm not I could find better outside a rap song.
Page 75: "The pride taken by women in the appearance of their genitals is quite a special feature of their vanity..." Really? Really? What women, Sigmund? Ok, I'll buy the strippers, but everyday women. No one likes to consider themselves deformed or abnormal, but I've never met a woman who took pride in their squishy bits.
Page 123: (summary paragraph of "General Remarks on Hysterical Attacks") "One may often observe that it is just those girls who in the years before puberty showed a boyish character and inclinations who tend to become hysterical at puberty. In a whole series of cases the hysterical neurosis is nothing but an excessive overaccentuation of the typical wave of repression through which the masculine type of sexuality is removed and the woman emerges." So it isn't that society was trying to stuff lively active women into a role that didn't suit their personalities and they were suffering from stress and emotional difficulties as a result?
There's one bit where Herr K. gets Dora, then 14?, in a room alone, shutters drawn and kisses her. When Dora is disgusted by this Freud attributes the strength of her reaction to self disgust. Self-disgust because he assumes Herr K. had an erection during the embrace, that it pressed against Dora, that this instantly caused Dora to get a corresponding erection (because what else would a girl do when pressed with an engorged member), and felt disgust at her own desire. How about she's disgusted because this is a family friend, someone of the previous generation, who's wife she likes, who's kids she takes care of, who's pushing himself on her?
In a second incident a few years later he propositions her with the same phrases he used to proposition his children's governess (the guy had the class of a 70's pornstar). Her reply is to slap him before he's even finished. Freud has a field day with this incident because Herr K. had made a reasonable proposition and he was, in Freud's words, still "prepossessing". Only Freud and Carl Hiassen can think that some old guy making a outright proposition is automatically going to work with a teenage girl.
28. Sigmund Freud Dora: An Analysis of a Case of Hysteria