Freud’s Identification with Herr K.

Dora, An Analysis of a Case of Hysteria by Sigmund Freud is a case study of a hysteric young girl named Ida Bauer. Freud takes on the case at the request of Ida’s father and probes into the origins of neurotic and hysterical somatic symptoms she seems to possess. In a series of fragmented recollections of interviews with Ida, Freud attempts to unearth and reveal the causes of Ida’s hysteric afflictions. He includes in his study the entire familial frame in Ida’s personal life; her mother, father, Herr and Frau K and the governess. Freud eventually reveals through Ida that unraveling her relationships and connections with these familial individuals is very relevant and essential.

However, there seems to be an unbalanced interpretation constructed by Freud throughout his case study. At certain parts of the narrative Freud points out that Ida is continually objectified by her father and Herr K., however Freud also plays in to objectifying Ida and takes part in using her as a “barter for exchange” to suit his own personal motives. Arguably, Ida’s further subjugation and exploitation by Freud can be seen as a narcissistic desire for inclusion in Ida’s familial framework or rather a transference from an analyst to something much closer to Dora. There seems to be a struggle of Freud to keep a professional analyst-patient distance. There are significant clues that shed light on this idea, such as Freud’s identification with Herr K. and his corruption of his analyst role at times throughout the case study. This will provide important evidence in understanding Freud’s underlying motives. Through close examination of Freud’s rhetoric, this paper will propose that this case of hysteria is not necessarily limited to the patient, but is extended to Freud as he weaves himself into a familial connection with Dora throughout the narrative.

As a psychotherapist, Freud is compelled to assert every possible outcome of a situation or event. In Dora’s case, Freud repeatedly transfers and changes the meanings of events that occur, many times with claims of displacement of a sexual nature. Take for instance the incident when Herr K. follows Dora, waits for her to be alone, and forces himself on her. Being a mere child, the reader might assume that Dora’s appropriate reaction was to resist and have emotions of disgust and anger. However, Freud does not necessarily agree with her reaction. He remarks that a “healthy girl” would have genital stimulation and sexual excitement, but instead reshapes Dora’s reaction and changes it to a repressed memory. Interestingly, further on through the narrative he again reformulates this scene, but includes himself in place of Herr K.:

So the thoughts of temptation seemed in this way to have harked back to the earlier scene, and to have revived the memory of the kiss against whose seductive influence the little “suck-a-thumbs” had defended herself at the time by the feeling of disgust. Taking into consideration, finally, the indications which seemed to point in having a transference on me – since I am a smoker too – I came to the conclusion that the idea had probably occurred to her one day during a sitting that she would like to have a kiss from me (Freud 66).

However, he quickly decides to throw the “transference” notion aside as it does not contain “susceptible proof”. This passage and Freud’s decision to set it aside quickly is very significant and acts as a strong starting point to crack open the significance of this paper’s claim.

            There is an implication that the affair of Dora’s father with Frau K. leads him to turn the other cheek when Herr K. starts making advances towards Dora, at least in and Dora’s perception of it, “When she [Dora] was feeling embittered she used to be overcome by the idea that she had been handed over to Herr K. as the price of his tolerating the relations between her father and his wife” (Freud 27). To an objective spectator, Dora’s claims are rooted in reality. Herr K. apparently let it be known that he has a sexual desire for the young girl in his actions, like sending her flowers everyday for a whole year and the event of the kiss. There is a sense that Freud validates Dora’s feelings on this matter, but then immediately rejects it as simply to cloak something else  to escape criticism. Freud then turns a perfectly reasonable, “sound and incontestable” thought of Dora’s into a “delusion-formation”. Freud’s resistance to accuse Herr K. or her father of wrongdoing reveals something more about Freud as well. In showing sympathy for her father and Herr K., he takes the position that validates the exploitation and perversion of Dora.

Consider what was previously stated in the above paragraph, “delusion-formation”. In expanding on this notion it is revealed that in fact Freud may be dealing with delusional tendencies himself. In “Keys to Dora”, Jane Gallop covers Freud’s suspicious stance as a distant and objective scientist. Gallop brings up the statement of Freud in which he writes, “A gynecologist, after all, under the same conditions, does not hesitate to make them submit to uncovering every possible part of their body. The best way of speaking about such things is to be dry and direct.” Gallop then parallels this statement with the “French detour” which in [Freud’s] terms “would seem to be titillating, coy, and flirtatious” (Gallop 79). The French term of which she speaks is when Freud writes, “J’appelle un chat un chat”, which translates to a vulgar statement of female genitalia. Freud’s defense of his diction reveals a delusion when considering his direct definition of delusional-formation, “A string of reproaches against other people leads one to suspect the existence of a string of self-reproaches with the same content” (Freud 28). In this case, as Freud uses the example of the sterile position of the gynecologist, he seems to contradict himself when he elects the detour and uses the French term, which can be translated into its vulgar representation, calls a pussy a pussy. What does this purpose serve? As a reader, this notion of contradiction might seem without purpose, and only serves to complicate solving Dora’s case. However, it reveals Freud’s unconscious wish to diminish himself as the analyst in this case study.

When the reader considers that Freud is subject to self-examination and complicit in altering the narrative in such a way to include himself in Dora’s familial space, this case study becomes something much more. His identification with Herr K. complicates the narrative, however it provides an intriguing outcome that provides the literary world an analysis that reveals our curious nature to connect with other humans on more of an emotional level. Freud’s wish was to be seduced by Dora, but in realizing his stance as an analyst, he kept himself and his audience in perpetual suspension long after the conclusion.

Works Cited

Freud, Sigmund, and Philip Rieff. Dora: An Analysis of a Case of Hysteria. New York,

            NY: Collier, 1963. Print.

Gallop, Jane. Course Reader: English 166: Freud/Nietzsche/Marx. Berkeley: University

            of California, Berkeley, 2013. Print.