94: Standard Edition Volume 2 Part 1: Pearls of Suffering: Studies on Hysteria, Part I Teaser

episode

Ordinary Unhappiness not yet transcribed

▲ 0

Transcript

This episode hasn't been transcribed yet Upvotes decide what gets transcribed next — 0 so far. Sign in to upvote

More from Ordinary Unhappiness

126: Mailbag Part 2: Searching for the Self Teaser 4 min · 20 Dec 2025

All episodes from Ordinary Unhappiness →

Report any issue

Source

Recorded22 Mar 2025

Publisherfeeds.buzzsprout.com

Handlerec:6550058

Show notes

Subscribe to get access to the full episode, the episode reading list, and all premium episodes! www.patreon.com/OrdinaryUnhappinessAbby and Patrick begin the Standard Edition Volume II. Their first text is Freud and Breuer’s famous Studies on Hysteria (1895), specifically its opening sections. First, they unpack the layered and suggestive series of Prefaces to successive editions of the book, revealing how each iteration charts the differing personal, professional, and theoretical trajectories of the two authors over time, and how they reveal Freud’s distinctive approach to memorializing his own intellectual development. Then they turn to the opening essay, originally published in 1893, “On the Psychical Mechanism of Hysterical Phenomena: Preliminary Communication.” Topics include the so-called “cathartic method,” the question of origins, the tensions and productivities of collaborative dialogues (not just between Freud and Breuer, but between these men and their female patients), and our first glimpses of Freud as a distinctively “coy” stylist. Abby and Patrick also dip into deep waters about questions of contingency and of origins – of symptoms, of cures, and of human suffering more generally – and how injuries to the psyche follow logics of causality, temporality, meaning, and alleviation that are all markedly different from those governing other traumas. Have you noticed that Freud is back? Got questions about psychoanalysis? Or maybe you’ve traversed the fantasy and lived to tell the tale? Leave us a voicemail! (646) 450-0847 A podcast about psychoanalysis, politics, pop culture, and the ways we suffer now. New episodes on Saturdays. Follow us on social media: Linktree: https://linktr.ee/OrdinaryUnhappiness Twitter: @UnhappinessPod Instagram: @OrdinaryUnhappiness Patreon: patreon.com/OrdinaryUnhappiness Theme song: Formal Chicken - Gnossienne No. 1 https://open.spotify.com/album/2MIIYnbyLqriV3vrpUTxxO Provided by Fruits Music

Ask this episode

“What did the council decide on item 42?” — answered with the speaker and the moment.