Family Romance, Family Secrets: Case Notes from an American Psychoanalysis, 1912

"This book, which presents an early psychoanalyst's session-by-session notes on a case of hysteria caused by severe sexual trauma and incest, offers a vivid portrait of psychoanalytic practice in the second decade of the twentieth century. Accompanying these notes are insightful commentaries by Elizabeth Lunbeck and Bennett Simon that situate the case historically and throw light on the many difficulties that both analyst and patient encountered in the treatment." In 1912, psychoanalyst L.E. Emerson, among the first of the American Freudians, and patient Rachel C., a twenty-two-year-old working woman, embarked on a treatment that would span five years and nearly three hundred hours. Emerson's notes, the earliest extant record of a psychoanalytic treatment in Europe or the United States, take the reader into the private space of the analyst's consulting room, providing a privileged view of the nature of psychoanalytic practice at that time. The book will be of great interest to students of the history of psychoanalysis and other psychological theories, to those interested in the history of women and gender, and to clinicians struggling with the treatment of severely traumatized patients today.