The history of the psychoanalytic movement — John Shaqi
The history of the psychoanalytic movementFreud, Sigmund
History
The history of the psychoanalytic movement
Freud, Sigmund
Psychoanalysis -- History
A few years later, at one of Charcot’s evening receptions, I found
myself near the venerated teacher who was just relating to Brouardel a
very interesting history from the day’s practice. I did not hear the
beginning clearly but gradually the story obtained my attention. It was
the case of a young married couple from the far East. The wife was a
great sufferer and the husband was impotent, or exceedingly awkward. I
heard Charcot repeat: “Tâchez donc, je vous assure vous y arriverez.”
Brouardel, who spoke less distinctly, must have expressed his
astonishment that symptoms as those of the young wife should have
appeared as a result of such circumstances, for Charcot said suddenly
and with great vivacity: “Mais, dans des cas pareils c’est toujours la
chose génital, toujours—toujours—toujours.” And while saying that he
crossed his hands in his lap and jumped up and down several times, with
the vivacity peculiar to him. I know that for a moment I was almost
paralyzed with astonishment, and I said to myself: “Yes, but if he knows
this why does he never say so?” But the impression was soon forgotten;
brain-anatomy and the experimental production of hysterical paralysis
absorbed all my interests.
A year later when I had begun my medical activities in Vienna as a
private _dozent_ in nervous diseases I was as innocent and ignorant in
all that concerned the etiology of the neuroses as any promising
academician could be expected to be. One day I received a friendly call
from Chrobak, who asked me to take a patient to whom he could not give
sufficient time in his new capacity as lecturer at the university. I
reached the patient before he did and learned that she suffered from
senseless attacks of anxiety, which could only be alleviated by the most
exact information as to the whereabouts of her physician at any time in
the day. When Chrobak appeared, he took me aside and disclosed to me
that the patient’s anxiety was due to the fact that though she had been
married eighteen years, she was still a _virgo intacta_, that her
husband was utterly impotent. In such cases the physician can only cover
the domestic mishap with his reputation and must bear it if people shrug
their shoulders and say of him: “He is not a good doctor if in all these
years, he has not been able to cure her.” He added: “The only
prescription for such troubles is the one well known to us, but which we
cannot prescribe. It is:
Penis normalis
dosim
Repetatur!”
I had never heard of such a prescription and would like to have shaken
my head at my informant’s cynicism.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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