1. Gender and Hysteria Discourse in Psychoanalysis
- Author
-
Sayaka, OKI, 研究論文, Research Paper, 東京大学大学院 人文社会系研究科 博士課程 現在ミュンヘン大学博士課程, and Ph.D. student, Graduate School of Humanities and Sociology, University of Tokyo, LMU Munich
- Subjects
Luce Irigaray ,gender ,hysteria ,identity ,Sigmund Freud - Abstract
This paper aims to discuss the works of Josef Breuer and Sigmund Freud dealing withhysteria in which the predominant analytical methods of psychoanalysis of the twentiethcentury are established. It is important to focus on the fact that this therapeutic relationship isbetween a male analyst and a female patient in discussing hysteria because the gender aspectwill be investigated here from a feminist perspective. A joint work of Breuer and Freud, Studies on Hysteria (1895), and Freud's Fragment of anAnalysis of a Case of Hysteria (1905) which is also known as Dora will be examined in thiscontext. Gender studies regard hysteria, specifically in Freud'ian psychoanalysis, as beingtypically a female condition. There was a 21 year old woman named Anna O. who underwent psychological treatment with Breuer. From this "talking cure", language became an importantmedium for analyzing the unconscious. As another example, Dora was 18 years old when shewent to Freud's clinic. A psychological model of hysteria is developed by Freud primarily fromhis masculine perspective, though many patients are female. Thus Freud interprets Dora's symptoms mainly from a male point of view and wrote about it in his Fragment of an Analysisof a Case of Hysteria. The development of an identity for the patient Dora becomes problematicin the end. It ought to be asked why the sexual distinction drives the analyst's power over thefemale patient. This paper investigates a possible reason for such differentiation in the function of "libido" and the difference forms of "expression" in language between man and woman; analyst andpatient. As a theoretical basis, Luce Irigaray's This Sex Which Is Not One (1977) will be used. Lastly, the problem of gender and hysteria discourse is discussed using the case of an Austrianauthor, Ingeborg Bachmann, who wrote a fragmented novel called The Book of Franza (1965/66). The novel shows an example of how the relationship between man and woman,analyst and patient, can be tied to power.
- Published
- 2011