Freud, Dora, and Compulsory Sexuality

Bibliographic Data

ID9020573
AuthorsLeslie Margolin (0000-0001-5635-3778, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA, USA, corresponding author)
Year2017
Volume61
Issue4
Pages546-560
Publication date2017-11-08
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Humanistic Psychology (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0022-1678 • E-ISSN: 1552-650X
PublisherSAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/0022167817739744
OpenAlexW2767853188
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited15

In this examination of Freud’s Dora, I show that Freud insisted that Dora’s comments and gestures reflected her underlying sexual motivations, despite her repeated denials and objections. The main point is that, just as Freud “ruled in” certain ways of talking, defining Dora’s sexual fantasies and dreams as acceptable and valid representations of her feelings, so also, Freud “ruled out” other kinds of talking, in particular, Dora’s accounts of nonsexual motivation. In treating those accounts as false and meaningless, as so much cover for her “true” sexual feelings, Freud not only imposed his vision of sexuality onto a patient, he showed an entire historical period how to read sexuality into everything people say and do

Feeling · Human sexuality · Psychoanalysis · Sociology · Gender Studies · Psychoanalysis and Psychopathology Research · Psychoanalysis and Social Critique · Psychology · Psychotherapy Techniques and Applications · Social Psychology

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