Analysis
When she was 27, she went to Freud, seeking treatment for vague symptoms including stomach ailments and slight depression related to menstruation. Freud diagnosed Eckstein as suffering from hysteria and believed that she masturbated to excess, in those days considered dangerous to mental health. Her 'treatment lasted something in the region of three years - one of the most protracted and detailed of Freud's early cases'.
In her analysis, Emma Eckstein 'supplied Freud with the material that would allow him to theorize hysteric symptomology...taught Freud about "the no-man's land between fantasy and memory, resonating with sadistic acts and fantasies of a former historical epoch"' Her 'eager collaboration in her analysis gave Freud much precious material...contributed substantial changes and fundamental new elements to his theories: the wish theory of psychosis and dream; the transferential reconstruction of her early pleasures...fantastic scenes from her inner life'. In particular, Freud's theory of deferred action owed much to 'Emma Eckstein's twinned scenes in shops..."Now this case is typical of repression in hysteria. We invariably find that a memory has been repressed which has only become a trauma through deferred action"'.
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