In an earlier blog, I described how Amelia Freud referred to her son as her "golden Sigi." According to Sigmund Freud's son, Martin, Amelia had a lively temper, was impatient, self-willed, sharp-witted and highly intelligent. Freud's niece, Judith Bernays Heller, wrote … [Read more...] about You Really Got A Hold On Me
Resources
A Man Like My Mumma Loved
Bertha Pappenheim was the child of two loving parents. However, it seems her father was too enchanted by the imaginative aspect of her personality. Captivated by her childlikeness, he didn't help her to grow into a woman. Given the times, he may have believed Bertha's … [Read more...] about A Man Like My Mumma Loved
The Way Back to Kansas
From Joseph's Breuer's account, it would appear that Bertha Pappenheim slipped easily into the psychotherapeutic process. Like Dorothy suddenly finding herself in Munchkinland in The Wizard of Oz, Bertha doesn't seem daunted by the strange land of psychotherapy. She was quickly … [Read more...] about The Way Back to Kansas
Sweet Child o’ Mine
Amalia Nathansohn was born in Brody, then part of Galicia, now a town of 24,000 people in Ukraine, in 1835. Her family then moved to Odessa, before settling in Vienna. When Amalia was nineteen, her family decided she would marry to Jacob Freud, a merchant from the Moravian town … [Read more...] about Sweet Child o’ Mine
What Lies Beneath
In her novel, "Guises of Desire," based on the relationship between Bertha Pappenheim and Dr Joseph Breuer, Hilda Reilly first describes Bertha as a young woman working hard to meet the expectations of her orthodox Jewish family. As the therapeutic relationship between … [Read more...] about What Lies Beneath