About Starr and Aron's Women on the Couch: Commentary on a Paper by Karen E. Starr and Lewis Aron

Abstract

Karen E. Starr and Lewis Aron's new study of primary sources shows that the idea of the importance of sexuality at Freud's times was broadly promoted by the neurological and medical (hydrotherapeutic, electro-therapeutic, etc.) establishment. This fact opens important new perspectives in the study of an underlying substructure to psychoanalytic thinking (especially the economic discharge model). Many details in this paper make us rethink the factual history of psychoanalytic theory in a new light.

Notes

¹Thanks to Ulrike May's (Freuds Patientenkalender: Siebzehn Analytiker in Analyse bei Freud (1910–1920). Luzifer-Amor, 19/ 37: 43–97, 2006; Neunzehn Patienten in Analyse bei Freud (1910–1920). Teil II: Zur Frequenz von Freuds Analysen. Psyche, 61: 686–709, 2007) and Christfried Tögel's (Sigmund Freuds Praxis. Visiten und Ordination – Psychoanalysen—Einnahmen. Psyche, 60: 860–880, 2006) studies and publications about Freud's professional schedule (Patientenkalender) between 1910 and 1920, the list of his fees between 1906 and 1921, and a cashbook between 1896 and 1899.