Sigmund Freud and the History of Anna O. Reopening A Closed Case by Richard A. Skues (Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006); reviewed by Albrecht Hirschmüller

Abstract

‘Anna O.’, Breuer's patient in the Studies in Hysteria, the ‘primal work of psychoanalysis’ (Grubrich-Simitis), features to this day in every history of psychoanalysis and every introductory seminar to medical psychology. This case history revealed for the first time how hysterical symptoms in speech could be traced back to their source and eliminated by bringing their unconscious affective content to consciousness and ‘abreacting’ it. Since Jones it has been known that the published case history left out the fact that the patient was not completely cured by Breuer's treatment and was treated for several more years in sanatoria, and that nevertheless in later years she led a full and productive life as a Jewish social worker. In 1972 Ellenberger revealed details of her life after Breuer's treatment and of a stay in Binswanger's clinic, and her case history for 1882 in Kreuzlingen was published in my dissertation in 1978.