ABSTRACT
Freud presents ‘Dora’ as his principal paradigm case for his specific aetiology of hysteria, but the author asks, was Dora a hysteric? This question parallels another question: were the women who were handed over to the inquisitors witches? Freud was using his pressure technique on Dora, which he claimed ‘never fails’. Freud’s inquisitorial method, evident in the Dora case, parallels the inquisitorial procedures in the witch trials.
Freud began his treatment of Dora in 1899. He extracted a confession from Dora of tearing herself free from Herr K., who had ‘suddenly clasped the girl to himself and pressed a kiss upon her lips’. Dora’s action, Freud says, is pathognomonic of hysteria. Freud diagnosed Dora as ‘ill’ because she failed to have a ‘feeling of sexual excitement’ when Herr K. again attempted to seduce her by the lakeside.
Freud does not help Dora work through her emotional distress. He instead has another agenda similar to that of the judges and inquisitors in the witch trials. Dora and the witches are accused of perverse sexual phantasies. The ‘Dora’ case examined in this chapter is unique in the canon of Freud’s works on female sexuality.
