The Enigma of Anna O

The enigma of Anna O. was one of the most famous of the case studies in Sigmund Freud and Joesph Breuer's seminal book, Studies on Hysteria. Until 1953 when Freud's Biographer revealed her identity, no one was aware that the real woman behind the anonymous pseudonym was the renowned German Jewish Feminist, Bertha Pappeneim. Born to a wealthy orthodox Jewish family in Vienna, Pappenheim was related to some of the most recognizable names in Jewish society - the Warburgs, Guggenheims and the Goldschmidt-Rothchilds. When her father became ill, the then twenty-one year old developed strange symptoms and was treated by the family physician, Joseph Breuer. The treatment consisted if Bertha relating her dreams and her own fairy tales, a process she termed the talking cure, which later became the basis for Freud's theories of psychoanalysis.