The revival of "Dora": advances in psychoanalytic theory and technique

Dreams Without Disguise: Using Freud’s Case of Dora to Demonstrate a Radically Client-Centered Approach to Dreams

In contrast to Freud’s conviction that dreams are a disguise of unconscious forbidden desires, this dream-centered methodology shows that dreams are intrinsically honest and have “self-discernable” meaning that can only be grasped by the dreamer. The article describes simple techniques to help clients center on their dream experience and self-realize the truths embodied in the rich, wondrous, and mysterious (but not “disguised”) images in their dreams. By using Dora’s own words and applying historical/biographical details of her life, the method allows her dream images to finally speak their truths—and overcome the tyranny of Freud’s relentless, over-sexualized interpretations. By repeatedly overruling Dora’s own ideas with his authority, Freud caused Dora to distrust her own understanding of her dream images along with her other feelings and perceptions about herself and the outrageous conduct of the adults in her life. By helping to facilitate the self-discernible meaning of dream images, therapists honor the autonomy of clients like Dora and foster their self-affirming capacity to draw wisdom and enrichment from their dreams.

Dora's hysteria and the maturation of Sigmund Freud's transference theory: a new historical interpretation

The emergence of Freud's 1905 revision and elaboration of transference theory is situated within the context of his emerging understanding of neurosogenesis. Immediately after the seduction theory lost its credibility in the fall of 1897, Freud maintained a traumatic model for hysteria and increasingly hypothesized that repressed childhood masturbation was fundamental to the creation of hysteria. Following this interest in masturbation, Freud--influenced in part by Havelock Ellis's concept of autoerotism--put forth his first post-seduction theory model of neurosogenesis in December 1899. In this model two different developmental stages of psychosexual object relatedness-the "autoerotic" and the "alloerotic"--determined and differentiated later psychoneurotic symptomatology. This etiological schema organized the next psychopathological writing Freud did, his "Fragment of an Analysis of a Case of Hysteria," in which Ida Bauer's hysteria was seen as due to oral zone autoerotic overstimulation and, later, to her object-directed genital masturbation. Freud in a postscript reasoned that in the analytic situation the production of neurotic symptoms ceases and is replaced by the creation of transferences. Hence it is argued that Freud, following his new two-tiered understanding of neurosis, expanded his formal description of transference by creating two analogous forms of transference, the "reprint" and the "revised edition."

Did Dora have an oedipus complex? A reexamination of the theoretical context of Freud's "fragment of an analysis"

A careful review of the Dora case refutes the commonly held view that it reflects Freud's adoption of his classical oedipal model. Through Dora, Freud examined some of the theoretical and emotional underpinnings of the seduction theory and began a complex and very gradual move toward an oedipal model, never reaching his classical formulation. The transitional nature of this case allows for an understanding of some of Freud's difficulties in adopting the oedipal model and the considerations that, nevertheless, eventually determined the move. How and why this was overlooked in all later studies of the case has important implications for the process of development of psychoanalytic theory and the writing of its history.

Concurrent individual and individual-in-a-group psychoanalytic psychotherapy

This paper's thesis is that concurrent individual-in-a-group and individual psychoanalytic psychotherapy can be conducted in conformance with psychoanalytic principles of treatment as well as can individual psychoanalytic psychotherapy alone. American psychoanalysts have shown little interest in group psychotherapy, probably because of earlier criticism that transference is diluted by the greater reality of the therapist in group psychotherapy. This is a misconception extrapolated from the mirror model of dyadic analytic technique. The criticism was formulated during a period when that model was prominent and there was little awareness that the actual personal relationship between patient and analyst played an important facilitating role in the dyadic analytic process, including providing a basis for investiture of transference. Also, the criticism was based on one-session-per-week group psychotherapy, whereas concurrent individual-in-a-group and individual psychoanalytic psychotherapy utilizes two group sessions plus one or two individual sessions per week, enabling a more intensive patient-therapist relationship. Concurrent group and individual psychoanalytic psychotherapy constitutes a contribution to the widening scope of application of psychoanalytic treatment.