Dora's mother: a housewife's psychosis

I examine a speculative diagnosis made by Sigmund Freud regarding his patient's mother in his landmark 1905 paper describing a hysterical illness. Freud considered the impact of Dora's mother's mental state on her daughter, wondering whether the mother might suffer from a ‘housewife's psychosis’. Here was an emphasis on the social structures of the times and differences between the parents in terms of sexual freedom and societal limitations placed on women. Freud's description drew attention to Dora's anxieties in relation to her parents, in particular the state of their sexual relationship and the apparently sanctioned entry of another couple, Frau and Herr K, into the parental relationship. In particular, the role of syphilis in the aetiology of sexual disturbances was considered, affecting men and their sexual partners, specifically their wives, who faced lifelong risks of morbidity, inadequate treatment and psychic disturbances at this time in 19th century Vienna.