The Enigma of Anna O. : A Biography of Bertha Pappenheim

Rating:
Summary: The Enigma of confused feminist history
Review: The case of Anna O., the founding case of psychoanalysis, is an endless source of fascination to each new generation of readers. As the work of Ellenberger and Hirschmuller showed, the "prototypal case of cathartic cure" was neither cathartic nor a cure. Both Freud and Breur in writing up the case as a success engaged in deception to an extent that would be regarded as scientific misconduct today.

Historical revision of the case has resulted in dozens of attempts to review the story in the light of modern thinking, many of them highly worthwhle exercises in diagnosis or historianship. In the process, we are learning something more of the neglected and highly interesting life of the real person behind the case, Bertha Pappenheim, who went on to be a pioneer social worker, children's writer, religious figure and intellectual.

Unfortunately, readers who are hoping for a dispassionate and intriguing voyage into the life of Ms Pappenheim are going to be disappointed by this book, which teeters between a romantically confused sophomoric thesis and a plaintive attempt at public writing therapy. Anyone who doubts this need only read the emetic acknowlegement, going on for many pages, before the actual text commences. After that, it is a steady path downhill.

The author appears to have no capacity for independent thought and constantly picks from such dubious sources as "feminist French lacanians" to justify her insistent lament that Anna O. was yet another victimised Victorian female who somehow managed to create psychoanalysis, psychotherapy, social work and goodness knows what else. About the only consistent conclusion that can be drawn from this nursery school thinking is that if feminist historians are going to produce work that is critical, deep and intellectually honest, this is not the way to go about it.

There are good books on Anna O. and Bertha Pappenheim, for example by Ellenberger and Hirschmuller, and more should follow. This self-indulgent work of second-rate scholarship and third-rate history is not one of them.

Rating:
Summary: One great book.
Review: This well-researched and engaging biography broadens the awarenesses of psychoanalysts and psychotherapists, historians of Europe in the past century and of Jewish history, and feminists. Knowing Anna O.'s enormously influential life trajectory sends a message of which we need continual reminders: someone can suffer from severe mental illness in one phase of his/her life and emerge from the experience strong and heroic, making powerfully contructive contributions.
And read Gail Hornstein's "To Redeem One Person Is to Redeem the World:The Life of Frieda Fromm-Reichmann" - they complement each other beautifully.