Hysterical: Anna Freud's Story Kindle Edition

HYSTERICAL: ANNA FREUD’S STORY, by Rebecca Coffey, is an historical novel told from the perspective of Anna Freud. It is a memoir Anna writes on her deathbed, and in true Freudian fashion as Anna reflects back on her life—the choices she made, the actions which defined her, how she came to be who she was—much of her memoir centers on her childhood. And much of her childhood ruminations center on her relationship with her monstrously overshadowing father, Sigmund Freud.In the Author’s Note of the book, Rebecca Coffey, a journalist by training, mentions that she did not set out to write a novel. When the various estates and Freudian strongholds kept Anna Freud’s personal letters and writings under lock and key, Coffey turned to fiction to fill in the blank spaces. This, I think, is an admirable approach—Anna’s is a voice that deserves to be heard. Anna was a lesbian, but her father’s work denounced her sexuality. At the same time, Anna Freud, of all of Freud’s children, was his clear intellectual heir and also his caretaker in his old age. They had a close professional and emotional relationship, but how did those theories about Anna’s “brokenness” affect her? Despite his warnings about the inherently erotic nature of the analytic relationship, Freud analyzed Anna, probably about her sexuality—what must that have done to their relationship? These are the questions Coffey sought to explore with her novel, and they are good ones. They are ripe for exploration. I was chomping at the bit to read this book.This is a situation, ultimately, of unfulfilled promise. When Coffey allows Anna to delve into the questions above, it is only with glancing blows. The story behind the book—Coffey’s search for answers, the tired old Freudian vanguard circling the wagons and shutting her out, her turning to fiction to create answers for herself—is more intriguing than the book itself, which is a great pity.For the book to work, Anna has to shine. As a narrator, for us as readers to carry with her, I feel the book could have gone one of two ways: she could have been blisteringly honest, terrifyingly honest about everything. There would have been anger, and evisceration, and confusion. A lot of emotion. A lot more emotion than she displays in the book as Coffey wrote it. Or, Anna could have been inherently unreliable—equivocating, hero-worshiping, lauding Sigmund in ways that betray to the reader that perhaps not all was what it seemed. Instead, we got an Anna who was removed and distant, smirking and gentle. It seemed it wasn’t her own story she was even telling.The rhythm of the narrative was strange; so much focus on some episodes of her life and so little focus on others. This is, perhaps, an odd complaint to make here, but I would have preferred the book to be less psychoanalytically focused—I would have liked fewer exhaustive sessions of Anna detailing her weird dreams to her father and more scenes of her actively living her own life. I wanted to see and feel her actually fall in love with the women in her life and experience her grappling with what that meant—not in sessions with her father, but in her own mind and in her skin. Ultimately, given the tightness of the focus on the analysis sessions with Sigmund, and given the narrowing in on his homophobia, the book became more about Anna’s inability to save him from himself than about her thoughts or her life or her actions.As a novel, the book suffered from a lack of characterization and flawed pacing. To succeed, Anna’s voice needed to be strong enough to carry the book, but Coffey never found it—Anna drifted into the background, and as in history, she was overshadowed once again by her larger-than-life father here. I applaud the intent of this work, but the execution left much to be desired for me.

This book is an extraordinary walk inside the psyche of the Freud family. Readers are gradually led to understand how Sigmund Freud functioned as a brilliant, troubled, sometimes caring but also fraudulent, abusive, self-absorbed and evil human being. Author Rebecca Coffey takes his essence and moves it giant steps forward to show how Freud molded his equally brilliant daughter Anna Freud, as a protégé. We see how Anna Freud then took what she learned about human nature from her father to think on her own terms and to incorporate kindness, self-awareness and honesty about her sexuality into her own celebrated life. Coffey, an exacting and compelling science writer, portrays Anna Freud with the measured freedom and literary accuracy found in the best, most extensively researched historical fiction. Such fiction has the potential to tell greater truths, as HYSTERICAL: ANNA FREUD's STORY does. Read this for the history - and to learn from history. The Freuds, including Anna who had earlier worked with war orphans, stayed in Gestapo-infested Vienna too long. Fascism and anti-Semitism had been palpable for decades and yet the privileged and high-profile Freuds did not flee until it was nearly too late. I read these later parts of the book with great interest, as so many of us ponder the rise of white nationalism in America today and wonder how one knows when, and if, it is time to leave. This book, in its wisdom, does not provide an answer. But in its pages readers will find both twentieth century history - and the present - illuminated.

The way Rebecca Coffey digs in to the intimate, behind the scenes of the Freud Family through Anna's eyes is incredible. Based on many facts that are known about the Freuds, Rebecca takes that information and tells us what that must look and feel like through young Anna's eyes. She also continues in to Anna's adulthood and knowing her childhood, it explains why Anna believed what she did. During a time when women were not well received in many professions, Anna was able to make her own mark on psychology which is incredible. Anna was slow to leave her father's strong belief system but finally seemed to find her way. Signmund had so many followers such as Alfred Adler all wanting to be mentored by him. Anna had a front row seat to all of it and that is what Rebecca tells us about. Rebecca took an interesting subject such as the life of Anna Freud and put some humorous takes on what her thoughts likely were. I didn't know how dysfunctional their family really was until I read this book. Freud is the grandfather of psychology and deserves recognition for being one of the first to delve deeply in to the human mind but he was pretty far off the mark in many cases. I won't spoil the ending. Women are portrayed as strong and intelligent and that makes me like the book even better. A man really could not have had the insight Rebecca has on what it must have been like for Anna. I could not put the book down.

Fantastic insight into the era and into the reality of growing up in the very unconventional Freud household. Enthralling reading.

Provided some insight into Freud and latterly the effect of WW2, but was a bit plodding.

This book is a novel about the life of Anna Freud, but it feels like an autobiography told by Anna herself. A beautiful book, written with a beautiful, gentle style and a very clear language: Anna comes live from every page. The narrative can be read at more than one level, depending on the background of the reader, but both the professional analyst and the casual reader will find it a rewarding book. Reading this gem has given me a pleasure which, even if an avid reader of Psychoanalysis, I have rarely experienced

Der alte Freud mag ja als Wegbereiter der Psychologie Fundamente gelegt haben aber sypathisch war er mir nie und seine Thesen und die Psychoanalyse an sich ist für mich größtenteils selbstbedeutsamer Humbug. Ich habe das Buch mit Spannung gelesen und es wundert mich nicht, im Buch anklingen zu hören, dass Freud ein Kinderschänder und Inzest-Täter war. Aber das Buch lebt nicht von dem unsympatischen Vater (der um Grunde dort selber als unglücklicher Mensch erlebt wird), sondern von dem interessanten Innenleben seiner Tochter und ihren Beiträgen zur Entwicklung der Psychoanalyse, die erst die Wertschätzung und das Mitgefühl für den Patienten einbrachten, nachdem Freud vor allem die Erhebung des Therapeuten über den Patienten ausführlich zelebrierte.

I really tried to read this all the way through but just couldn't.