freud
... be an abstract and irrelevant diagnosis by Freud. Dora grew up in home with an obsessive compulsive mother and a cheating father. During Dora’s childhood she was diagnosed with many illnesses and disorders yet the validity of the diagnosis was questionable. Freud described and evaluated Dora and her family’s medical history using scientific terminology to gain credibility from his medical audiences. But if Freud looked deeper into the timing of her symptoms he would have found the key relationship between certain points in her life and her symptoms. Instead, Freud immediately diagnosed Dora with “petite hysterie” because of her symptoms, “dyspnoea, tussis nervosa, aphonia, and possibly migraines, together with depression, hysterical unsocialability, and a taedium vitae” [p.320]. Dora’s problems such as migraines ...