Freud's Dora Case Critiqued for Patriarchal Bias

The representation of patriarchy:
sexuality and epistemology in Freud’s
Dora
By : Toril Moi
presented by : Aamou zakaria
Copyright © Wondershare Software

Overview:
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Introduction
Who is Dora
Fragment or a whole ?
Transference and counter transference
Patriarchal prejudices
Sexuality and epistemology
Discussion


Introduction
• The article revolves around the psychological disorder that
Dora suffered from
Hysterical symptoms.
• This Psychological disorder was due to her social
background :
 She had a little scope of independent activity.
 Her father’s treatment: he decided to give her up to Heer K. ( he is
the husband of Dora’s father’s mistress) in exchange for his wife.

• If i get your wife you will get my daughter !!


Introduction
• According to Moi, Freud’s treatment to Dora was a fiasco
mainly due to his sexist beliefs and his alliance with the
male power game conducted against Dora.
• Some feminists regard Dora’s hysteria as a form of protest,
a silent revolt against male power.
• Moi deploys a variety of critics who tried to tackle this
issue through a rich review of the literature that examines
Dora’s case :


Introduction
 1.Dora’s hysteria may be seen as a political weapon
through which she rebels against patriarchy.
 2.what has worsen Dora’s problem is her unconscious
belief that femininity, bondage and debasement were
synonymous which means that if she could only
differentiate between the three concepts she could be
liberated.


Who is Dora ?

• Dora is just a pseudo name, her real name was Ida Bauer
(1882-1945).
• Dora suffered from various hysterical symptoms (nervous
cough, loss of voice, depression,….).
• These Hysterical symptoms were due to the patriarchal
frame that surrounded her life.


• Freud delayed the publication of this case for four years.
This was due to his unusual degree of uncertainty, doubt
and ambiguity.
• Freud’s suggests three reasons for calling his text as a
fragment:
 First, Dora interrupted the treatment before its completion.
 Second, Freud didn’t offer a complete analytic result of the process
of interpretation.
 Finally, Freud stresses that no case study can provide a complete
answer to all problems embedded within hysteria.


• This, as a matter of fact, proves Freud’s obsession with his
incomplete status of his text.

• Hence, the fragment can be presented as a complete book,
yet, a complete case history could not.


Transference and counter
transference
• little did Freud know that Dora was transferring the
emotions she felt for Herr K onto Freud himself.
• It is completely normal in the course of psychoanalysis and
the analyst must be aware of it so that the analysis won’t
go awry.
• Freud started transferring his unconscious emotions onto
Dora, which could be referred to as counter transference.


transference
• According to Lacan, the reason behind the failure of Dora’s
analysis is Freud’s excessive interest in the alleged love
that Dora felt towards Herr K, the thing that made him
blind to any other explanation.

• In the same vein, Freud believes that the protagonist of this
case develops hysterical symptoms as she represses sexual
desires towards her father :
Electra complex


transference
• These sexual desires were rejected as her father has got
himself a mistress. Subsequently, Dora started despising
her father and steering those desires to Herr K.
• Freud pushed Dora into confessing her feelings toward
Herr K. the thing that Dora resisted as best as she could.
• Freud tried to interpret this “alleged love” through the fact
that Heer K. Attempted to kiss Dora when she was fourteen
years old in his office. However, Doura had a moment of
violent feelings of disgust and rejection.

• In this section Moi deduces the paradox that Freud falls in:
 He asserts the existence of sexual desire in women (he believes
that females are sexually active and therefore they have some
independent drive).

 At the same time he refuses all the above mentioned ideas
considering that females are mere passive recipients of male
desires (Dora in this context is considered as a sexual object of a
male desire, Heer K.).


• In this sense, Dora’s rebellion against Freud is in a sense a
revolt against patriarchy at large. Hence, when she
dismissed Freud, we may say that she dismissed the
patriarchal frame that surrounded her life.
• However, her hysteria is not to be taken as a solution to
break free from patriarchal prejudices, but rather “a
declaration of defeat, the realization that there is no other
way out.”
• The psychoanalysis project of emancipating women has
failed because Freud, the liberator, is himself politically
and socially on the side of oppression. And thus he is
unconsciously a patriarchal.

• The author epistemologically criticizes the analysis on
which Freud based his interpretation and elucidation of
Dora.

• “Why would Freud be so obsessed with these sources of
knowledge?” = fragmentary material of Freud is very
tormenting because of the lack of completeness and
information.


• The struggle here is over the possession of knowledge. In
other words, the claim of Freud that he discloses and
unlocks Dora’s secrets is a mere fallacy. Hence, they both
have their own secrets. Dora had a homosexual desire.
Freud is afraid of not winning the battle of knowledge.
•

Moi had a deep belief that the failure of solving the riddle
of Dora will result in Freud’s “castration”.



• Hence, Freud's epistemology is clearly phallocentric as it
looks at the male as the bearer of knowledge, he alone has
the power to penetrate woman and text; women’s role is to
let herself be penetrated by such truth.


Discussion
• Can we deem Dora’s hysteria as a revolt
against male power?
• Did Freud the man or Freud the Psychiatrist
deal with Dora’s case ?
• To what extent is Freud obsessed with
Dora’s case ?


Freud's Dora Case Critiqued for Patriarchal Bias

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