The Secret Mind of Bertha Pappenheim

The extraordinary life of a brilliant woman whose contributions to science have been lied about and misused-the Henrietta Lacks of psychoanalysis-and whose mental health struggles look different in light of newly emerging research. In 1880, young Bertha Pappenheim got sick-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 so that symptoms go away-and this, Freud acknowledged, became the basis for what would become the theory of psychoanalysis. In Freud's mythology Pappenheim was renamed "Anna O," and as he got older his stories about her became more extreme. For over a century, scholars have wondered: Was she really sick? Was talking cure really a cure? Amid all this argument a persistent absence has remained: the actual woman, Bertha Pappenheim. Brownstein's book fills this void, and