The Secret Mind of Bertha Pappenheim

Starred review from January 22, 2024
Brownstein (The Open Heart Club), an English professor at St. John’s University, takes a fresh and fascinating look at the life of Freud’s “Anna O” and the illness that ailed her. In 1880s Vienna, Bertha Pappenheim (1859–1936) was stricken by a mysterious collection of symptoms (roving paralysis, aphasia, headaches, etc.) broadly defined as “hysteria.” She sought treatment from Freud’s mentor Josef Breuer, and together patient and doctor fashioned a curative method in which Pappenheim recounted “repressed memories,” which seemed to alleviate some of her symptoms. Cited by Freud in his and Breuer’s 1895 treatise Studies on Hysteria, the “Anna O” case serves in many ways as “the founding myth... of the theory and practice of psychoanalysis,” Brownstein writes. Yet the claim that Pappenheim was “cured” is false, according to the author, who notes that Freud and Breuer corresponded in the following years about her continued mental suffering and suggests she later eschewed psychoanalysis. Brownstein theorizes that Pappenheim’s symptoms may have stemmed from functional neurologic disorder, and includes case histories of present-day sufferers to contextualize the condition. Infused with emotion from Brownstein’s own personal losses (he wrote the book while grieving the deaths of his wife and father, the latter of whom had begun the research into Pappenheim), the result is a riveting look at the boundaries between neurology and psychology and the gender dynamics of medicine. This captivates. Agent: David McCormick, McCormick Literary.

February 15, 2024
Revisiting the life of one of Freud's first patients--known as Anna O--to rethink the condition once known as hysteria. "The night before he died, my father, Dr. Shale Brownstein, a retired psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, gave me an essay he had written about Bertha Pappenheim and Sigmund Freud and Freud's mentor, the great Viennese physician Dr. Josef Breuer." Brownstein begins with strong memoir material, vividly recalling his fascinating father, whose interest in Pappenheim the younger Brownstein adopted as a personal project that sustained him through "the worst years of [his] life," including his wife's death and the pandemic. From there, the author dives into an exploration of Pappenheim's life, which began with "hysterical" illness but ended with her work as "a writer, activist, and organizer, and the leading Jewish crusader against the M�dchenhandel, the 'girl business, ' the sex trade in young women." The treatment that Pappenheim co-created with Breuer and Freud gave rise to "a new kind of talking cure, a new kind of listening cure, practiced by doctors whose primary field of study is the neuroanatomy of the brain." Today, these conditions are known as functional neurological disorders (FNDs), encompassing often-disastrous physical symptoms that cannot be traced to a clear biological cause and for which modern versions of the talking/listening cure are now dominant. Brownstein interviewed numerous FND patients and doctors, presenting Sacksian case histories, including one involving Oliver Sacks himself. Other strands trace the lives and work of Breuer and Freud. While this well-researched book bears some similarities to the author's previous work, The Open Heart Club, in this case his personal connection to the topic is less direct, so we get a bit less of his wonderful personal writing and lower stakes overall. For those who have a connection to the condition it explores, this thoughtful book will be most welcome.

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