by
Sean Ruck, Contributing Editor | May 13, 2016
From the May 2016 issue of HealthCare Business News magazine
It was in his new office where he partnered with physician Josef Breuer to treat one of the more famous patients in medical history, Bertha Pappenheim, or Anna O., as she was referred to in research and papers published about her case. She was experiencing a number of hysterical symptoms, but through the use of autohypnosis, where she would talk about her symptoms and how they impacted her, some of the symptoms abated. It seemed just the act of talking about the symptoms made them manageable in a way.
Freud believed, in part, that the symptoms were alleviated because the patient was subconsciously addressing a grievance from an event that had long been buried because of the painful memories it evoked. After taking that step in thought, it was only a few more steps until he began to posit the theories he’s best known for, including the Oedipal Complex and interpretation of patient dreams and fantasies, and how they were often linked to some type of sexual thoughts. It’s at this point that phallic association abounds and it’s from those associations that the quote, “sometimes a cigar is just a cigar,” is purported to have emerged with common belief held that Freud said it in defense of his very active cigar smoking habit. Yet, no records can be found of him making the statement and it seems to have first appeared some years after his death. Ironically, the cigars he was so fond of were just cigars and likely caused the oral cancer that led to his intentionally overdosing on a prescription of morphine he had requested from his doctor. Freud died on Sept. 23, 1939.
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