The Secret Mind of Bertha Pappenheim: The Woman Who Invented Freud's Talking Cure

by Gabriel Brownstein

Overview

The story of a patient who changed the world, and the mystery of her illness.

In 1880, young Bertha Pappenheim got strangely ill—she lost her ability to control her voice and her body. She was treated by Sigmund Freud’s mentor, Josef Breuer, who diagnosed her with “hysteria.” Together, Pappenheim and Breuer developed what she called “the talking cure”—talking out memories to eliminate symptoms. Freud renamed her “Anna O” and appropriated her ideas to form the theory of psychoanalysis. All his life, he told lies about her. For over a century, writers have argued about her illness and cure.

In this unusual work of science, history, and psychology, Brownstein does more than describe the controversies surrounding this extraordinary woman. He brings Pappenheim to life—a brilliant feminist thinker, a crusader against human trafficking, and a pioneer—in the hustling and heady world of nineteenth-century Vienna. At the same time, he tells a parallel story that is playing out in leading medical centers today, about patients who suffer symptoms very much like Pappenheim’s, and about the doctors who are trying to cure them—the story of the neuroscience of a condition now called FND.

The Secret Mind of Bertha Pappenheim argues for the healing art of listening and describes the new “talking cures” emerging out of neuroscience today.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781541774650
Publisher:	PublicAffairs
Publication date:	04/16/2024
Sold by:	Hachette Digital, Inc.
Format:	eBook
Sales rank:	244,206
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

Gabriel Brownstein is the author of three previous books, most recently The Open Heart Club. For his short stories, he’s won a PEN/Hemingway Award and a Pushcart Prize. He’s an English professor at St. John’s University in New York City.

Editorial Reviews

★ 01/22/2024

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. (Apr.)

Publishers Weekly

[F]ascinating...Brownstein toggles between Pappenheim’s ordeal in the past and the puzzled patients and physicians of the present—and the ways in which the so-called talking cure may, or may not, also fit into current treatment protocols.”—The Wall Street Journal

“This is a memoir nestled in an investigation, hidden inside a mythology. And it’s really about the limits of knowledge: not just about what we know about Pappenheim, but about medicine specifically and about nonfiction in general.”

—The New York Times Book Review

“[A] riveting look at the boundaries between neurology and psychology and the gender dynamics of medicine. This captivates.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"In his much-anticipated book, Gabriel Brownstein excavates Bertha Pappenheim’s life, finally telling the full story of this extraordinary feminist whose work continues to impact countless patients today."—Lilith Magazine

“With the heart-racing pace of a novel, Brownstein creates a moving portrait of Bertha Pappenheim as he gives her a voice, a heart, and a soul.”—Jessica Anya Blau, author of Mary Jane

“This is a work of courageous and compassionate reexamination of a Jewish feminist icon who deserves to be much better known. Brownstein excavates trauma and grief, mind and brain, silencing and "the talking cure," and moves us with his portrait of Bertha Pappenheim, her passion and her purpose.”—Anya Kamenetz, author of The Stolen Year

“Brownstein's wonderful book is part intellectual history, part scientific inquiry, and reads like a detective novel. The mystery concerns Freud's most famous patient, and the wildly satisfying twist is that our most fundamental ideas about the human mind grow out of this very case.”—Joe Weisberg, creator of “The Patient” and “The Americans”

“The Secret Mind of Bertha Pappenheim braids its fascinating stories together seamlessly. This is a very important contribution to the Pappenheim/Freud literature and to helping people with FND today.  I found the book absolutely riveting.”—Marion A. Kaplan, Professor Emerita of Hebrew and Judaic Studies, New York University

“I adored this book.  Out of a writer’s encounter with his dying psychoanalyst father flashes a revelatory Anna O. who, despite a century’s efforts to erase her real life, leaps through a told and retold history —  passionate women as mere lab specimens,  a circle of brilliant but flawed men, a moment in Vienna. Exhilarating."—Honor Moore, author of The Bishop’s Daughter

From the Publisher

2024-01-04
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 Mädchenhandel, 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.

Kirkus Reviews