Throughout his book Dora: An Analysis of a Case of Hysteria, Sigmund Freud discusses the nature of hysterical symptoms by applying the concept to one of his patients. He concluded that our powerful desires are always in conflict, and his theories tried to account for how theses conflicts give rise to unintentional expression. His interpreted Dora's dreams and her other unconscious acts which helped him to prove that they reveal wishes that we would rather not face more directly.Freud first explains how he thinks our body works. He describes distinct characteristics of all people saying that we have a conscious perception, and preconscious and an unconscious perception. He believed that ...view middle of the document...
Therefore, this buried emotion remains trapped and censored in the unconscious level. Freud then goes to explain that sometimes our censor doesn't fully operate, which causes these negative emotions to seek through by mediated or masked forms (ex. Dreams). This is why the Freud examines Dora's dreams and uncontrolled actions in this book.Freud decided that Dora became hysterical at the age of 14 because she got "weirded out" by an older man hitting on her. He thinks this is evidence of a hysterical symptom because she didn't respond to the sexual advances. Any normal girl, he explains, would have advanced instead of responding with rage. After this incident, Dora tells Freud that she started to cough a lot. Just as I would think if I heard this, many people would probably assume that Dora juts came down with a sickness. However, Freud thought that that since Dora repressed her sexual excitement, her feelings transferred from her genitals to her throat. Dora also explained to Herr K. that the cough would get worse when Herr K went away on business trips. Freud explains this saying that it's because Dora was in love with Herr K. so she was upset when he wasn't there. So it is seen that Freud thought that the main cause of hysterical symptoms was from energy that needed to be discharged. This somatic symptom such as the coughing is the outlet, which provides an opening for the energy to be discharged. He called this the Issue of Displacement. Therefore, as we can see, the mind and the body are working together here. The physical state of Dora is basically being "hijacked" by her unconscious.
