NATHAN G. HALE,JR.
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and that she and Breuer together constructed a kind of hypnotic theater
of illness and cure. Indeed, Anna
0.
was merely reproducing all the hyp–
notic phenomena she had learned about when a famous hypnotist gave a
series of sensational demonstrations in Vienna in 1880, the year she fell ill.
Borch-Jacobsen supports his argument for the conscious awareness of the
hypnotized subject by citing Ernest Hilgard, the Stanford researcher in
hypnosis. In fact, however, Hilgard discovered that in less than half of his
sample of hypnotized subjects a functioning "observer" could be elicited
who knew exactly what happened while under hypnosis. Freud knew of
this phenomenon. Moreover, the observer phenomenon did not occur in
states of deep hypnosis. Hilgard's observation bears little relation to Borch–
Jacobsen's description of Anna O.'s histrionic and theatrical displays.
Finally, one patient came to Hilgard after suffering from a paralysis of the
arm that had persisted for years, and this kind of paralysis, of course, was
precisely one of Anna O.'s symptoms, which Borch-Jacobsen believes had
been simulated.
Borch-Jacobsen interprets Anna O.'s illness as in part a protest against
her limi ted and puritanical upbringing, a judgment with which Freud and
Breuer probably would have agreed. But he makes nothing at all of what
Breuer regarded as crucial to her case: her erotic attachment to her father,
her nursing of her father at night during his prolonged and fatal illness
from complications of the tuberculosis which also had killed her sister. He
trivializes her complaints, downplays her suicide threats. He makes nothing
of the fact that some of her symptomatic behavior occurred when she was
forbidden to nurse her father because of her own nervous condition, that
the news of his death was kept from her by her mother for a period of
time. These charged emotional issues are scarcely dealt with at all, but
some of them are at the heart of Breuer's and Freud's recounting of the
case.
Finally, the author presents us with a credulous Breuer, playing along
with his histrionic patient. Yet Breuer's cautious German biographer,
Albrecht Hirschmueller, professor of medical history at the University of
Tiibingen, noted that Breuer had a sophisticated knowledge of the dan–
gers of hypnosis and suggestion. Breuer was careful to state that he thought
his patient was independent and critically minded, not easily suggestible,
and that some of her statements had been corroborated by others in her
household and by a diary that her mother had kept.
When she said she had simulated all her symptoms he countered that
precisely that kind of denial was common among hysterical patients. Were
all their complaints simulated as Borch-Jacobsen would insist? Or were
they genuine? It is probably a question the historian cannot answer. But
Breuer was no fool and he believed them to be genuine and spontaneous.
