neurologist, Jean-Martin Charcot. Charcot was experimenting with early
versions of hypnosis and its use in curing what were then believed to be un-usual physiological problems. Shortly thereafter, Freud returned to Vienna
and began work with a prominent physician, Joseph Breuer. Like Charcot,
Breuer was using hypnosis to treat hysterical patients. Hysteria is a disorder
that consists of a variety of physical symptoms. Patients often display blindness,
deafness, an inability to walk or to use an arm, and so on. Most physicians
of that day treated hysteria as if it were a physically based illness. However,Breuer and Freud developed another interpretation.
Discussions about one of Breuer ’s patients, a woman with the pseudonym
Anna O., probably set the direction for the rest of Freud ’s career. According
to Breuer, Anna O. experienced a number of hysterical symptoms, including
paralysis of her left arm, hallucinations, and the ability to speak only in
English even though her native tongue was German. Under hypnosis, AnnaO. would talk about her daydreams and hallucinations and about past trau-
matic events. During her final hypnosis session, she discussed her experiences
with her dying father and some associated hallucinations about a blacksnake. After this session, the paralysis in her arm was gone and she could
once again speak German.
In 1895 Freud and Breuer published Studies in Hysteria, in which they
presented the case of Anna O. and discussed their use of hypnosis in treatinghysteria. Freud continued to use hypnosis to treat his hysterical patients, but
he soon grew disillusioned with its limitations and began looking for alterna-
tive methods. Slowly he recognized the importance of allowing patients to say
whatever came into their mind. He discovered that, even without hypnosis,
under the right circumstances patients would describe previously hidden ma-
terial that seemed related to the causes and cure of their hysterical symptoms.
Refinement of this technique, called free association , was a significant step in
the development of Freud ’s theory.
One startling discovery Freud reported in his early patients was that
memories uncovered during free association often concerned traumatic sexual
experiences, many of which supposedly had occurred in early childhood. Hegradually concluded that these early sexual experiences were responsible for
the hysterical symptoms expressed by his adult patients. At this point Freud
was well along the way in his transition from neurologist to psychologist. Hecontinued to work with hysterical patients and wrote about his observations
and the development of his theories, convinced that he was on the threshold
of important psychological discoveries.
But Freud ’s writings sold poorly at first. In fact, his work met with great
opposition in the academic and medical communities. Freud ’s open discussion
of infantile sexuality and omnipresent sexual motives did not sit well with thepuritanical standards of Victorian Europe. His approach to treatment was so
radical that many respected physicians considered it absurd. Nonetheless,
Freud continued his work and his writing and soon developed a small follow-ing of scholars who traveled to Vienna to study with him. These scholars
formed the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society, with Freud as its great figureheadFreud Discovers the Unconscious 41