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Free Association at Bergasse 19, Freud and Dora |
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Ceramic |
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41 x 19 x 8 in |
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$5,600 |
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Description |
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“Free Association in Bergasse 19” (Freud and ‘Dora’)
Ceramic Sculpture by Astrid Rusquellas, M.D.
When I was sculpting this piece, I modeled Freud first and afterwards his patient on the couch. I immediately called her Dora without any hesitation. I was conscious that if I called the piece “Free Association”, she should have been called Emmy N. or Elizabeth Von R., the women that Freud credited as co-authors of his new technique. However for me, the woman lying on the couch was Dora.
We now know that Dora was Ida Bauer, the sister of Otto Bauer, prominent socialist legislator in the Austrian Republic. We also know that her case was that of a relatively unsuccessful analysis. And we know this, because Freud himself has told us so, in the “Fragment of an Analysis in the Case of Hysteria”, 1905. Dora who was 18 at the time, was analyzed by Freud for only three months in 1900. She stopped the treatment in defiance of Freud’s instructions.
I first read Freud’s writing on Dora when I was 18, and already a third year medical student. I got married that year and thought of myself as a liberated woman of radical political ideas. Like the feminists in the 70’s, I was outraged by this reading, and like them I lacked information about the historical context of the medical procedures in those years. Like them, I lacked necessary basic knowledge to understand a lot of what Freud was talking about. However one thing remains valid, of both mine and the feminists reading of Dora’s case, and that is the underlying hostility that we detected from Freud’s part, towards this 18 year old patient. It is clear that Freud engaged in a power struggle with this young woman, as part of what he later termed “counter-transference”.
From the point of view of therapeutic gains, the case could not be considered a complete failure. After treatment with Freud, Dora’s symptoms of a persistent irritative cough, and her depression and feelings of powerlessness, practically disappeared. She was able to confront Mr. K and her parents with obvious gains for her self-esteem and sense of reality.
Although she remained for the rest of her life, somebody with a tendency towards somatization, who often took refuge in the role of sick, she was able to marry, lead a fairly normal life, raise a son and when her father’s fortunes collapsed, (extraordinarily for a Viennese Victorian woman), she was even able to work for a living as a bridge teacher. After all Freud had validated her story about Mr. K’s attempted seduction, and her father’s manipulative/exploitative behavior and deceit. Actually Freud was the only adult who gave her that credit.
When I started practicing psychoanalysis, I hadn’t seen the Engelman’s photographs of Freud’s office at Bergasse 19. Traditional psychoanalysts of my initial times, had offices that responded to a minimalist spirit of decoration. The dictum was that the analysts office should have the least possible information about him or herself and objects should be scarce and pictures non-existent. This naïve belief was motivated by the idea that the objects displayed is the office would convey secrets about who the analyst is. Of course, according to this conception other socioeconomic information such as geographic location of the office, type of lexicon used by the analyst, intonation, clothing, etc., did not figure in the picture of information about the therapist.
I was a rebel and my office was in defiance of orthodox advise. My office at the time was full of books, and a myriad of objects that proved my heretical tendencies. I was therefore extremely surprised and overjoyed when I first saw the photographs of Bergasse 19 by Engelman. Just like mine, even more so, his office was full of archeological relics, statuettes, objects d’art, sculpture, hundreds of pictures, and the famous ubiquitous carpets on his couch, on tables, and desks.
Psychoanalysis and psychotherapy are a risky and fascinating business, both for the therapist and for the patient. In good hands by both parties, it can conjure the magic of learning, growing, healing, and creating. This piece is my homage to that very unique place of encounter and synthesis.
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