Anna O. was a pseudonym of Josef Breuer’s patient and her case was published in the book Studies of Hysteria, the result of collaboration with Sigmund Freud. This patient’s real name was Bertha Pappenheim, Austrian-Jewish feminist. Her problems were caused by her father’s illness. Her symptoms were in “nervous cough”, squinting, partial paralysis, visual disturbances, and a lack of feeling of her right arm. She also had speech disturbance and a psychologist concluded that she was hiding something and must be made to speak.
This kind of treatment is regarded as the first step to the beginning of psychoanalysis. Her case also helped to discover such phenomenon as transference. Transference is the situation when a patient’s feelings toward an important figure in his/her life are transmitted onto the therapist. Anna imagined her pregnancy with doctor’s baby. Despite all the treatments she was not becoming better but even worse. Both Breuer an Freud thought “she would rather die than end her recovery”. However, she recovered over time and manager to lead a real life. Later it was discovered that Freud was mistaken in her diagnosis according to Anna O. Her illness was rather neurological than psychological.
The case of Anna O. was a great step toward the development of different psychological theories, e. g. the theory of personality. There are many theories of personality conflicting both between and within various psychological viewpoints. There are two Freud’s personality theories, one of which is concerned with the Id, Ego, and Superego. Despite believing each person is unique, psychologist also believed that the human’s personality is constructed of three basic elements that everyone has in common. These three elements are Id, Ego and Superego. That order of development is subordinated by three psychosexual stages of development that is why personality is not completely developed till the age of five. However, Jung considers more elements of personality. To his mind person’s psyche, or self, comprises unique qualities of ego, shadow, persona, and complexes, formulating all together a distinctive personality.
S. Freud regarded the unconscious as a inundated but vast segment of the mind. In his theory unconscious was a mix of id and superego systems. Jung expanded Freud’s theory by adding the inherited unconscious, also known as the collective unconscious. In the case of Anna O. both these theories have the right to coexistence, but Jung’s theory of inherited unconscious would clarify the situation how Anna’s father affected her state. Jung’s theory was not based on psychosexual environment. If comparing the ways of treatment Freud did to Jung possible one’s, it should be mentioned that Jung considered Freud’s methods as nothing of the sort. Later opponents of psychoanalysis used this statement against the therapeutic approach. Freud also told Jung that the returning of all symptoms was the consequence of Anna’s refusal of treatment. Anna’ reaction is still unknown. If using Jung theory, his approaches could be better than those Freud did. But the best way of treatment is cooperation of these psychologist and invention of a …