In 1880, a discreet revolution took place in suburban Vienna. As medical men, including Sigmund Freud, beat a path to Paris to watch Charcot’s hypnotised patients act out their hysterical symptoms to a raptured audience at the Salpêtrière, a Viennese doctor and his young patient were quietly creating a new psychotherapeutic method.
In November 1880, Dr Joseph Breuer attended Fraulein Bertha Pappenheim, a twenty one year old woman, living in a strict orthodox Jewish family, in Leopoldstadt – Vienna’s Jewish quarter. Bertha was suffering from a bad cough.
Somehow, despite Breuer working as a general practitioner, and Bertha being an ordinary girl with a bad cough, the pair quickly slipped into what would now be referred to as daily psychotherapy sessions.
At each meeting, Bertha recounted her daydreams – sad stories, often about a girl who was unwell. After each of these sessions, Bertha experienced some relief from severe psychological traumas. (Bertha’s sufferings will be outlined in detail in a later blog).
In time, Bertha came to refer to the process as chimney sweeping and the talking cure. Sigmund Freud referred to the treatment as the first psychoanalysis.
For me, there is an obvious question, one that has not been given due recognition over the last 138 years.
How was it that a doctor innocently went to treat a young woman for a bad cough, and suddenly, together, they are plumbing the depths of her psyche?
Who were these people and why would they do such an audacious thing?
In the next blog, we will get some help from Mick Jagger.