ABSTRACT
In the early part of the twentieth century, Elizabeth Severn became a self-educated and self-taught therapist. Psychoanalysis has acknowledged the achievements and pioneering contributions of women who helped shape the field. Anna O./Bertha Pappenheim is acknowledged as one of the founders of psychoanalysis by Freud. Freud credits Bertha Pappenheim with developing the talking cure, when she convinced Josef Breuer to let her verbalize her emotional issues in a non-hypnotic state. In this chapter, Severn is considered one of the founders of the Ferenzian alternative to Freudian therapy. Severn's career as a self-taught clinician began when she was a door-to-door encyclopedia salesperson and eventually developed into becoming a psychoanalyst. There were a wide variety of therapeutic interactions in the 49 cases, which indicate Severn's creativity, flexibility, responsiveness, and wide-ranging capacity as a clinician. Magnetic treatment was one of the earliest methods of treatment Severn used at a time when she described herself as a metaphysician.
