Summary

In this section entitled, “The Clinical Picture,” Freud provides a history of Dora’s life and symptoms. He also declares an objective underlying this case study: that in presenting Dora’s history, he means to demonstrate the significance of dream interpretation in psychoanalysis, for dreams are the means through which things that are repressed can emerge into view.

Freud first explains that though he intends to present a full case history, it is often the case that any information provided by the relatives of the patient or by the patient themselves is unreliable. In terms of the patients, they can deliberately withhold what they mean to say, or suffer from memory-gaps, or have other reservations related to their repressed thoughts. Freud contends that it is only through treatment itself can a complete case history be formed, that the aim of analysis is remove...