In 1880 in Vienna, young Bertha Pappenheim lost her ability to control her voice and body and was treated by Sigmund Freud's mentor, Josef Breuer, who diagnosed her with "hysteria." Pappenheim and Breuer developed what she called "the talking cure" – talking out memories so that symptoms go away – which became the basis for psychoanalysis.
Fascinating ... Brownstein could have written a much easier book than the one he did ... Brownstein is allergic to answers. He likens himself to a "conscientious archaeologist" and leaves it to his readers to draw their conclusions based on the specimens he places before us ... As frustrating as this can feel to the reader, perhaps the impossibility is the point.
Fascinating if uneven ... In his effort to reunite the alter ego with the person, Mr. Brownstein scours the historic record for details Breuer left out ... Most intriguingly, he reassesses Pappenheim’s ailments through a 21st-century neurological lens.