Young dr. Freud. Pt. 1, Struggling with the demon.

First in a two-part documentary on Sigmund Freud's early work on hysteria and hypnosis in Vienna and Paris and its key role in development of pyschoanalysis in the 1890s. This programme traces Freud's life from the age of 23; his medical research including the investigation of cocaine, his work in Paris in 1885 which led to his interest in hysteria, his marriage, his initial treatment of hysteria with electric shocks. We then hear of Freud's friendship with Josef Breuer and the story of 'Anna O', a young woman who had fallen ill while nursing her father. Under a hypnotic trance she revealed the cause of her hysteria to be the thought of her father's death combined with her passionate love for him. This enhanced Freud's idea of 'the talking cure'. Freud later abandoned the use of hypnosis and simply asked his patients to talk and to free-associate. Following his meeting with a young girl who appeared traumatised after discovering her father (who had previously tried to force her to have sex with him) having sex with her sister, Freud developed his theory of hysteria being caused by sexual assault on an innocent child. He was in a troubled state, made worse by the rejection of his theory by his colleagues. Freud's father then fell ill and died. Freud was kept late at his barber's so arrived late for the funeral. That night he dreamt that he was in the barber's shop and saw a sign reading 'You are requested to close the eyes'. Did this dream hold a clue to his own troubled state? (Contintued in Part 2 - see separate record.)