Talking cure

Development

Invention of the term

Breuer found that Pappenheim's symptoms—headaches, excitement, curious vision disturbances, partial paralyses, and loss of sensation, which had no organic origin and are now called somatoform disorders—improved once the subject expressed her repressed trauma and related emotions, a process later called catharsis. Peter Gay considered that, "Breuer rightly claimed a quarter of a century later that his treatment of Bertha Pappenheim contained 'the germ cell of the whole of psychoanalysis'."

Sigmund Freud later adopted the term talking cure to describe the fundamental work of psychoanalysis. He himself referenced Breuer and Anna O. in his Lectures on Psychoanalysis at Clark University, Worcester, MA, in September 1909: "The patient herself, who, strange to say, could at this time only speak and understand English, christened this novel kind of treatment the 'talking cure' or used to refer to it jokingly as 'chimney-sweeping'."

Locus classicus

There are currently three English translations of Studies on Hysteria, the first by A. A. Brill (1937), the second by James Strachey (1955), included in the Standard Edition, and the third by Nicola Luckhurst (2004). The following samples come from Breuer’s case study on “Anna O...” where the concept of talking cure appears for the first time and illustrate how the translations differ:

Current status

Mental health professionals now use the term talking cure more widely to mean any of a variety of talking therapies. Some consider that after a century of employment the talking cure has finally led to the writing cure.

The Talking Cure: The science behind psychotherapy is also the name of a book published by Holt and authored by Susan C. Vaughan MD in 1997. It explores the way in which psychotherapy reshapes the through incorporating neuroscience research with psychotherapy research and research on development. It contains clinical vignettes of the "talking cure" in action from real psychotherapies.

Celebrity endorsement

The actress Diane Keaton attributes her recovery from bulimia to the talking cure: "All those disjointed words and half-sentences, all those complaining, awkward phrases...made the difference. It was the talking cure; the talking cure that gave me a way out of addiction; the damn talking cure."

References

References

1. Ernest Jones, ''The Life and Work of Sigmund Freud'' (Penguin 1964)p. 202
2. Jacques Lacan, ''The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psycho-Analysis'' (London 1994) p. 157
3. Peter Gay, ''Freud: A Life for our Time'' (London 1988) p. 65
4. Gay, p. 64
5. Sigmund Freud, ''Five Lectures on Psycho-Analysis'' (Penguin 1995) p. 8-9
6. Breuer, Joseph & Freud, Sigmund: ''Studies in Hysteria'', p. 29. Translation by A. A. Brill.
7. Breuer, Josef & Freud, Sigmund: ''Studies on Hysteria'', pp. 30–31. Translated by James Strachey.
8. Freud, Sigmund & Breuer, Joseph: ''Studies in Hysteria'', pp. 33–34. Translated by Nicola Luckhurst.
9. P. L. Rudnytsky/R. Charm, ''Psychoanalysis and Narrative Medicine'' (2008) p. 229
10. (31 July 1997). "Sure, It's All in Your Head, but at Least Science Knows Why". The New York Times.
11. Diane Keaton, ''Then Again'' (2011) p. 91