3. CONTENTS
• Biography of the author
• Background on the case of Katharina
• Summary
• Text analysis
• Sigmund’s psycho-analysis on Katharina
• Rhetorical strategies (style of the text)
• Critical Appreciation
Terminologies
• Conclusion
4. Sigmund Freud (1856-1939)
• Born –May 6,1856 in
Freiberg, Moravia
• Graduated from Vienna
University in 1873
• Physiologist, medical
doctor, psychologist and
father of psychoanalysis
• Founder of Psychoanalytic
School of Psychology
• Died of cancer while exiled
in England in 1939
5. Cont…
• Recognised as one of the most influential and
authoritative thinkers of the twentieth century
• Articulated and refined the concepts of the
unconscious, of infantile sexuality, of repression, and
proposed a tri-partite account of the mind's
structure, all as part of a radically new conceptual
and therapeutic frame of reference for the
understanding of human psychological development
and the treatment of abnormal mental conditions
6. • Freud's innovative treatment of human actions,
dreams, and indeed of cultural artifacts as invariably
possessing implicit symbolic significance has proven
to be extraordinarily fecund, and has had massive
implications for a wide variety of fields, including
anthropology, semiotics, and artistic creativity and
appreciation in addition to psychology.
• However, Freud's most important and frequently re-
iterated claim, that with psychoanalysis he had
invented a new science of the mind, remains the
subject of much critical debate and controversy.
7. STUDIES IN HYSTERIA
• Studies on Hysteria (German:
Studien über Hysterie) was a book
published in 1895 by Sigmund
Freud and Josef Breuer.
• It contained a number of Breuer
and Freud's case studies of
"hysterics". It included one of the
case “Katharina’.
• At the time of its release, Studies
on Hysteria was not well received
by the European medical
community.
8. Cont….
• It was not until years later that psychoanalysis was
recognized as a legitimate psychiatric tool.
• In the book were presented two different viewpoints:
a neurophysiologic and a psychological cause for
hysteria. Breuer described the causes of hysteria by
supporting a neurophysiologic cause, while Freud
used a psychological standpoint.
9. BACKGROUND ON KATHARINA
• "Katharina," whose real name, AureliaÖhm-Kronich,
was uncovered by Peter Swales (1988), was born on
January 9, 1875, in Vienna, and died on September 3,
1929, in Reichenau.
• Her case was the third discussed by Sigmund Freud
in the Studies on Hysteria (1895d).
• A note added to the text in 1924 corrects the
historical record with the following information:
"Katharina was not the niece but the daughter of the
landlady. The girl fell ill, therefore, as a result of
sexual attempts on the part of her own father"
10. SUMMARY ON CASE 4: KATHARINA
• Dr. Freud meets Katharina during excursion in
Hohe Tauren.
• Suffered from suffocation due to anxiety
attack.
• During attack:
– Feeling of something pressing her eyes.
– Head gets heavy and feel giddy.
– Throat starts to choke.
– Hallucinates an awful face.
11. Continued…
• Freud’s view: anxiety attack with some signs of
hysterical aura.
• Freud’s conclusion:
– Anxiety was actually hysterical attack
– Dreadful face she hallucinated was that of her
uncle
– She was terrified by his threatening
– Sick implies disgust
12. Text analysis
• Katharina, niece of the landlady, meets
Sigmund Freud during excursion in Hohe
Tauren.
• She confesses to him.
• Uncle and her cousin Franziska caught during
sexual intercourse.
• Tells her Aunt about Uncles infidelity.
• The forgotten memory when molested by her
Uncle floods back.
13. Continued…
• Molested by Uncle who was incestuous towards
her in an Inn.
• Too young to know about such sexual activities.
• Recalls times when she suspects she saw her
Uncle and Franziska.
• The disgust was not by the sight of her Uncle and
Franziska
• Memory of the attempt on her at the night she
had “felt her uncle’s body” disgusted her
14. Continued…
• Dr. Freud asks her about the awful face.
• She recognizes it as her Uncle’s head.
• Uncle had threatened to do something to her.
• She was scared so she frequently dreamt
about the awful angry face
15. Contd……….
• The case history of Katharina, an employee at a
mountain retreat that Freud visited, is presented.
• The girl approached him with a problem of an
anxiety attack that had first appeared 2 years
previously.
• Katharina realized that her uncle had been making
advances to her and that he had also been involved
with her cousin.
• It was hoped that she, Katharina, whose sexual
sensibility had been injured at an early age, derived
some benefit from the conversation with Freud.
16. Cont..
• Katharina agreed that what Freud interpolated into
her story was probably true; but she was not in a
position to recognize it as something she had
experienced.
• The case was fitted into the schematic picture of an
acquired hysteria.
• In every analysis of a case of hysteria based on sexual
traumas, the impressions from the presexual period
which produce no effect on the child attain traumatic
power at a later date as memories, when the girl or
married women acquires an understanding of sexual
life.
17. Cont…
• The anxiety which Katharina suffered in her
attacks was a hysterical one; that is, it was a
reproduction of the anxiety which had
appeared in connection with each of the
sexual traumas.
18. Psychological Analysis
Sigmund divided personality into:
• Ego- balance between Superego & ID.
• Superego- Will or desire that can be
controlled.
• ID(Instinctive Drive)- Uncontrollable emotions
or excitement.
19. CONTD…
• Compares the acquired hysteria into two
phases:
• Traumatic Moment( When uncle approached
her once in inn).
• Auxiliary moment (When she saw her uncle
with Franziska engaging in sexual relation).
20. CONTD…
• Auxiliary moment is equally active as
traumatic in her case.
• Auxiliary moment sometimes can work as
traumatic.
• The latter scene was equally functioning
rather than revival of traumatic experiences.
21. Rhetorical analysis
• Balanced Tone
• Complex Sentences
• Dialogues are punctuated with Freud's
thought process, as in paragraph
19, 26, 50, etc.
• 1st section diagnosis (upto paragraph 26)
• Analysis by Dr. Frued, then onward
• Brackets (in paragraph 25, 41,47), Dash (in
paragraph 66, 68, 70) and footnotes are
provided for extra information
22. Conclusion
• Finds peculiarity in her case
• Symptoms of hysterical phenomena does not
occur immediately but after a span of
incubation
• Freud unraveled the cause of hysterical
symptom
23. Terminologies
• Hysteria: emotionally unstable state
• Molestation: act of subjecting someone to
unwanted or improper sexual advance activity.
• Incestuous: relating or involving incest.
• Anxiety: nervousness or agitation.
