Sigmund Freud’s “Five Lectures On Psycho-Analysis” is a thorough inspection of the developing idea of what “hysteria” truly is. Through this written version of the lectures, we get to explore the many experiments Freud and his peers go through while trying to figure out to correct way to go about helping the mentally ill patients. In his first lecture, he mainly focuses on ideas of suppression, mnemic symbols, the double consciousness and most interestingly the change in personality a physician goes through when faced with hysteria. In the novel, “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, the narrator is married and has a sibling relationship to a physician where we get to see how disadvantaged these doctors really are. In “The Yellow Wallpaper” it illustrates Freud’s criticism of most doctors as we watch the narrator and her husband’s relationship unfold throughout the story.
In lecture one we get to see Freud discovering how these hysteric patients develop these serious illnesses. He reveals the hysteric symptoms to be the cause of several traumatic experiences that can be cured by being hypnotized and reviewing the events in chronological order. He also goes over the idea of suppression, when a person holds in the information that upsets them and lets it manifest as a hysteric symptom as well, such as ticking or shaking. Then he reveals the idea of the “double conscious” which is “If, where a splitting of the personality such as this has occurred, consciousness remains attached regularly to one of the two states, we call it the conscious mental state and the other, which is detached from it, the unconscious one.” (Freud 2208). Although these ideas are important, the most intriguing idea seemed to be that doctors often lost sympathy for a person who has been diagnosed with hysteria.
As Freud explains
“He cannot understand hysteria, and in the face of it [,] he is himself a layman. This is not a pleasant situation for anyone who as a rule sets so much store by his knowledge. So it comes about that hysterical patients forfeit his sympathy. He regards them as people who are transgressing the laws of his science – like heretics in the eyes of the orthodox. He attributes every kind of wickedness to them, accuses them of [an] exaggeration, of deliberate deceit, of malingering. And he punishes them by withdrawing his interest from them.” ( Freud 2201).
This quote explains that once a doctor diagnosis his patient with hysteria, he begins to lose interest as he is now a “layman” meaning that he knows nothing of that practice. It is almost an insult towards his career as he is supposed to know all of the human body. So instead, the doctor chooses to neglect them, because they see it as an “exaggeration”. If it cannot be physically seen, then the doctor should pay no mind to it.
This could be seen in “The Yellow Wallpaper” when the narrator is talking about her husband John. In the novel, the narrator is put on what is known as “rest cure” by her adoring husband John, as he feels it will cure her of her anxiety and bad thoughts. In the novel, it states “ John does not know how much I really suffer. He knows there is no reason to suffer, and that satisfies him.” (Gilman 649). In this quote, we get to see how John does not really care enough to get any further information on how the narrator really feels, but instead holds onto his ego and trusts his judgment far better as he cannot see that there is any physical issue. This relates back to Freud’s statement of how since these physicians cannot identify the issue with the patient, they begin to neglect the patient, which is what John seems to be doing as he never truly seems to be interested in getting further information on his wife’s illness. Instead, John continuously insists that his wife must stay on bed rest while he is out in town with his actual patients.
In Freud’s “Five Lectures of Psycho-Analysis” and Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” the audience really gets to see how mental illness can affect a person in many ways. It also uncovers the way that doctors mistreat such patients due to their little knowledge of such a grand topic. As we see the narrator and her husband’s relationship unfold throughout the story; and her husband’s continuous neglect of his wife contributes to his wife’s downfall. It most importantly highlights how highly the narrator thinks of her husband and therefore must abide by his rules, which is definitely an irony towards the issue that he really knows nothing at all.
