Summary Response
Freud’s idea presented through Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper”
Hysteria has been such a phenomenal issue for centuries. The cause and the treatment of hysteria was not well understood or reasonably explained for many years, until Sigmund Freud, an Austrian neurologist provided the perfect explanation. Around the time of the 19th century, in Ancient Greece, hysteria was considered as a female disease thinking that the womb in their body wandered around and caused madness (Jaffray). However, hysteria was not taken seriously back those days. Many doctors were likely to treat a hysterical patient lightly since the illness did not provide any evidence to be an organic disease. Freud worked with another physician Dr. Josef Breuer and discovered the cause, and gave lectures about their discovery and potential cure for hysteria. In lecture 1 from Five Lectures on Psychoanalysis by Freud, he talked about the attitude of the doctor toward a hysterical patient. Later Charlotte Parkins Gilman, a writer who wrote “The Yellow Wallpaper”, presented a situation that depicted the central discussion of Freud in his lecture.
In the lecture l, Freud discussed the doctors’ attitude and treatment toward the hysterical patient and how they were being ignorant toward them. Freud began by giving a brief explanation about his working partner, Dr. Breuer’s patient’s illness. Later he exemplified the patient’s illness to explain the uncaring attitude of the doctors to such hysterical patient. For example, Freud drew that “ If a picture of this kind is presented by a young patient of the female sex, whose vital internal organs (heart, kidneys, etc.) are shown on objective examination to be normal, but who has been subjected to violent emotional shocks – if, moreover, her various symptoms differ in certain matters of detail from what would have been expected – then doctors are not inclined to take the case too seriously” ( Freud 2200). This evidence leads to the idea that the doctors would not care about a case a lot if they would see the vital organs were normal and did not find any indication of any organic disease, or the patient did not show any symptoms that were expected out of them. In other words, the doctors would simply not treat the patients well if their internal organs were found to be functioning normal.
In addition to that, Freud also said “It is noticeable that his attitude towards hysterical patients is quite other than towards sufferers from organic diseases. He does not have the same sympathy for the former as for the latter: for the hysteric’s ailment is far less serious and yet it seems to claim to be regarded as equally so” (Freud 2201). This gives an understanding of his idea that if the doctors saw the patients did not display any symptoms of any organic disease, they were less likely to pay attention toward the patient with mental illness than any other organic disease.
Different from what Freud explained about all other doctors’ attitudes, he has illustrated Dr. Bruer as a supportive individual toward his hysterical patients. He described Dr. Bruer as friendly and understanding. In his lecture, Freud said, “Dr. Breuer’s attitude towards his patient deserved no such reproach. He gave her both sympathy and interest, even though, to begin with, he did not know how to help her” ( Freud 2202). Meaning that, even though Freud mentioned in his lecture about doctors’ uncaring attitude toward their patients, he represented Bruer differently than all other doctors. According to Freud, Breuer’s attitude was mutual toward his patient. Because he tried his best to help his patients with sympathy and showing interest, despite he was not confident about what treatment he could have given to his patient.
Following what Freud described the doctor’s non serious attitude in his lecture, a connection could be made with the character “John” presented by Gilman in “The Yellow Wallpaper”. In this story, Gilman presented similar thoughts as Freud about the doctor being apathetic and uninterested toward his patient. For example, Gilman showed that “John does not know how much I really suffer. He knows there is no reason to suffer, and that satisfies him” (Gilman 649). This evidence satisfies what Freud wanted to convey. Because this evidence gives a clear understanding of how John, as a doctor, was treating his wife, that he would not listen to his wife’s problem, neither would try to understand her feelings of pain. And that fully conveyed the idea Frued supplied in his lecture about the doctor’s negative attitude toward their hysterical patients.
Work Cite Page
Freud, Sigmund. “Five Lectures on Psycho-Analysis”.Celebration of the Twentieth Anniversary of the Foundation , 1909, Massachusetts, Clark University.
Gilman, Charlotte. “The Yellow Paper”.1892. PDF file.
Jaffray, Sarah. “What Is Hysteria?” Wellcome Collection, Wellcome Collection, 12 Aug. 2015, wellcomecollection.org/articles/W89GZBIAAN4yz1hQ.
