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.
Here’s the problem: Brownstein wants to make Freud the (very) bad guy of a story that had little to do with him, even if he had a great deal to do with the case becoming a story ... Brownstein thus rewrites up the notorious case, with his chatty, negative asides and interpretations taking center stage ... As author and son, Brownstein is overwhelmed by the research subject he must now try to understand.
