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Anna O. is the pseudonym of a patient of Josef Breuer, a prominent Viennese internist who was a mentor to and early collaborator with Sigmund Freud. The patient, Bertha Pappenheim, was a brilliant Austrian-Jewish woman who later became a pioneer in the discipline of social work. She was diagnosed with hysteria and treated by Breuer between 1880 and 1882. The case history of the treatment, “Fräulein Anna O.,” written by Breuer, appeared as the first clinical chapter in Studies on Hysteria, published jointly by Breuer and Freud in 1895. The name Anna O. stands for the “alpha and omega of neurosis,” or as might be written today, “Neurosis from A to Z.” Breuer’s treatment of Pappenheim eventually led to a theory of hysteria, a new method of psychological treatment, and the germ of a new way of thinking about personality and the mind – Freudian (Classical) psychoanalysis – that would have a major impact on our thinking about human nature.
Anna O. and...
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References
Breuer, J., & Freud, S. (1893). On the psychical mechanism of hysterical phenomena: Preliminary communication from studies on hysteria. In J. Strachey (Ed. & Trans.), The standard edition of the complete psychological works of Sigmund Freud (Vol. II, pp. 1–17). London: Hogarth Press.
Breuer, J., & Freud, S. (2009). Studies on hysteria. Basic Books Classics: New York (Original work published 1895, translated 1955).
Ellenberger, H. F. (1972). The story of “Anna O”: A critical review with new data. Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, 8(3), 267–279.
Freud, S. (2008). Five lectures on psychoanalysis. BN Publishing: Thousand Oaks (Original work published 1910).
Jones, E. (1972). Sigmund Freud life and work, volume one: The young Freud 1856–1900. London: The Hogarth Press.
Mitchell, S. A., & Black, M. J. (1995). Freud and beyond: A history of modern psychoanalytic thought. New York: Basic Books.
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Tsuman, L. (2020). Anna O.. In: Zeigler-Hill, V., Shackelford, T.K. (eds) Encyclopedia of Personality and Individual Differences. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-24612-3_566
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-24612-3_566
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