Freud's First Lecture Analysis

In Freud’s First Lecture, he explores the case study of a hysterical patient that was examined by Breuer. Breuer is eager to help his patient, unlike other doctors who are unwilling to help. Similar to the short story “The Yellow Wallpaper,” the narrator’s physician husband saw her mental illness as a natural occurrence and brushed it off. In the end, she did not receive proper treatment and became insane. The circumstance in the short story can further prove Freud's criticism on doctors who are compelled to help hysterical patients. Additionally, I agree with Freud’s viewpoint.
Freud claims that many doctors “[...] cannot understand hysteria, and in the force of it he is himself a layman.” (7) Due to the lack of understanding of hysteria, these doctors, as stated in the lecture, “ accuses [patients] of exaggeration, of deliberate deceit, of malingering [...] and he pushes them by withdrawing interest [...]” (7) This shows how the doctors feel would not treat them at any cause because of their lack of understanding and sympathy to treat them.
Freud’s criticism can be further analyzed in the short story …show more content…
This can be seen by the husband's view of the narrator's condition in “The Yellow Wallpaper.” Not only did he see it as foolish but he also refuses to listen to her and limits a lot of her free-will because he believes that will improve her symptoms. Consequently, that only worsened her condition. I assume that these doctors see hysterical patients as threats to their ego because they don’t know how to treat them. At that time, they were only able to treat symptoms that dealt with the “[...] anatomy, [...] physiology and in pathology,” (Freud 7) and when cases like hysteria come up, they become completely unaware and defeated. In other words, as Freud uses, they become “[...] a layman.” (7) Therefore, they blame the patients instead of themselves for not being able to treat their