Ideas for Rereading

When one reads this case of Freud and Dora - perhaps his most famous case - it is impossible not to be struck by the social control aspect of psychotherapy. When Dora's father brings her to Freud to "Bring her to reason" what we sense is the ways in which definitions of mental instability and madness were not so much clinical assessments (although they could be these as well) but ways in which the description of an individual as being in some essential way psychologically deviant could be used as a means of controlled their behavior so that it became more socially acceptable.

In many ways, Freud's treatment (although it seems strikingly heavy-handed to us now) must be seen as humane when contrasted to the kinds of treatments that came before it (such as Charcot's treatments of those unfortunates at the Salpetriere Hospital). Not only were his patients excused from the kinds of physical constraints and even torments that had been commonplace up to that time, but he was interested in the underlying causes of mental disturbance. That is, while much of what passed for psychological treatment in the 19th and early 20th centuries (and before) was aimed only at controlling behavior, Freud was interested in both the behavior and the underlying thought patterns. Dora's father is interested primarily (and perhaps even solely) in having Freud treat Dora so that her behavior will be changed, made more acceptable. Freud is willing to accede to this demand from anothe

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Category: Psychology - I