Freud – Hysterical Paralysis as a proof of the unconscious mind (Part 3)

Do you know what paralysis is? 
Some of you might watch a TV show called Glee.  You might recognise this character Artie.  Artie is in a wheelchair.  He is paralysed from the waist down.Artie the character was born this way.
Something went wrong when he was still developing in his mother’s womb and the part of his spine that would have made him able to walk didn’t develop properly.


If you like old movies you might remember this guy – Christopher Reeve.  He was famous for playing Superman.  In 1995, while competing in a Horse Riding competition, he was thrown from his horse and he broke his spine.  Because of that injury, he became paralysed from the neck down.  

Sometimes people contract a bacterial or viral infection that leads to a condition called meningitis.  The membranes surrounding the brain become infected and this may stop the blood flow to the brain.  In some instances the lack of blood causes damage to the part of the brain that controls walking and movement and people become paralysed.

As we can see in these cases above – the paralysis was caused by a physical or observable reason – either a genetic deformity, physical injury or a disease.  In ordinary paralysis we can pin point exactly what has caused the paralysis.

However in some cases of paralysis – there are no observable or physical reasons why the person seems to be paralysed.  The person is not faking the paralysis – in some instances doctors have held a burning candle under a woman’s "paralysed" arm and she didn’t flinch at all.  Neither has the person been injured in some way, nor has the person contracted or show any signs of disease.  Freud called that kind of paralysis – HYSTERICAL PARALYSIS.

But why would a person with no injury, no sign of disease and who was born with the ability of movement suddenly become paralysed out of the blue?  How can we possibly explain that?
Take a look at this peculiar case.  

The 19th Century was an uncomfortable time in history for women.  Woman were not as free as they are today, women were not allowed to vote in most places and couldn’t do things like open bank accounts in their own name or have control over their own finances.  In fact, if you were born a woman in the 19th century, your chance of survival largely depended on finding a husband to support you.  In exchange for that support, it was generally expected that a woman would “earn her keep” by providing sexual services and and bearing children for the husband so that his family line could continue.  If a woman was not able to bear children – her life might have been very sad.  No one wanted a woman who couldn’t provide that.  Those kinds of women were left homeless, loveless and unfulfilled.  In truth, if a woman ever found herself in a position like that, it was possible that those would be grounds for divorce – if she couldn’t bear children, her worth as a wife would be nought and the husband could legally divorce her and not be expected to support her.  People would have looked down on her, she could easily find herself in the position of being an outcast, penniless and emotionally broken.  In that time women were also not given the same kind of consideration as men had – a woman’s happiness may not have been as important as it is today.  

  Sometime in the 19th  century, a young woman in her twenties, mother of one child, is brought to Dr Freud.  She seems to be paralysed from the waist down.  The only reason she is referred to Dr Freud is because all the other doctors have no idea what the cause of her paralysis is.  They have done every test imaginable to check whether her paralysis is organic, that means - to see whether she is paralysed because of damage to her spinal cord, or injury to her brain.  She was not paralysed until a few months ago.

Before that she had walked, moved as normally as any other woman or man.  The other doctors were confused – what was causing the paralysis?  The other doctors had heard that in addition to Dr Freud being neuroscientist that was really successful at treating patients for whom other doctors could not find the physical cause for their illness, so finally after trying everything, they asked Dr Freud if he would come and examine the patient and see if there was anything that he could do.

Dr Freud agreed to see the young lady.  He began to talk to her and ask her questions.  He asked whether she had had a fall, whether she had been ill, whether she had problems walking when she was a child, whether prior to her paralysis whether she felt any numbness in her limbs, or whether she had experienced any headaches or pain in her limbs?  To all of his questions, the young lady answered that nothing of the sort had happened.  Dr Freud then began to ask her about general things in her life.  She started to tell him that her parents were dead, and that the only family she had was the family she married into.  She told him she was married to a handsome young man that all the girls admired.  She spoke proudly about her child and how after the child had been born she loved taking care of the child and how happy her husband had been.  She told him that her husband often told her after that child was born, that he wanted her to have more children.  She told Dr Freud that she knew that nothing would make her husband happier than if she were to have more children.  Dr Freud asked her if there was anything unusual about her life before she became paralysed, whether something had disturbed her during her last doctors visit.  She told Doctor Freud that it was strange but that she remembered going to the doctors office but she couldn’t remember anything about the visit so it must have been unremarkable.  She remembered going home and going to bed but nothing more than that, about that day.  After talking for a little while longer, Dr Freud said goodbye and that he would see her again in a few days time.

Dr Freud went back to his office – he thought that he had an idea of what was wrong with the young woman and that it had had nothing to do with a neurological disorder.  So Dr Freud asked her old doctors if there was anything unusual about her first pregnancy.  They told him that she had had a very difficult pregnancy, that she had to be confined to a bed for most of her pregnancy.  They said that when she went into labour she nearly died several times, the stress of childbirth had put her heart under enormous stress and that she had lost a lot of blood.  (Remember that the doctors in those days didn’t have the science, research, invention or technology to either treat those kinds of conditions or stabilise them – in fact in those days they didnt even have things like condoms or the pill to prevent pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases.)
After she gave birth she was fine again, she healed and she was soon running around the house and taking care of her baby, she would often be seen taking her baby for a walk.  She went back to the doctor to see if enough time had passed for her to try for another baby. It was then that the doctors had told her that it was a very dangerous risk, a bad idea all around.  He said that in her last pregnancy she had been lucky to survive, he said that her body would not be able to take another pregnancy and if she did try to give birth to another baby – that she would die.  In fact the doctors told Doctor Freud that they had advised her that even strenuous intimate contact with her husband would put her heart at risk again and that she could die from that alone.  The Doctors told Dr Freud that it was only a few days after that her husband had asked them to come have a look at her because she couldn’t get out of the bed and that she seemed to be paralysed.
Dr Freud thought about it and suddenly realised why the young woman was paralysed.  She was not suffering from organic paralysis, she was suffering from hysterical paralysis.  Her paralysis had to do with the incredible psychological dilemma that she had to confront.  A dilemma that was too painful for her conscious mind to deal with and that her paralysis was in fact the effect of the work of her unconscious mind trying to help her out.  He proceeded to tell the other doctors exactly what he thought was wrong with this woman.
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Now imagine that you are Dr Freud –

• How would you explain to the other doctors what the function and the effect of the unconscious mind is?
• What would you think would have been the intense psychological dilemma that she faced? 
• Why would the woman be experiencing such conflict over her dilemma?
• Why did the woman not remember anything about her last Doctors visit?
• How did this young woman’s unconscious mind help her out?
• Why does the unconscious mind helo her out by making her paralysed – what purpose would it serve?

Here is the slideshow that Mrs Latecka presented in class

2013 freud and the concept of the unconscious mind from C