The Enigma of Anna O

"The story of "Anna O" was one of the most famous of the case studies in Sigmund Freud and Joseph Breuer's seminal book Studies on Hysteria. Until 1953 when Freud's biographer revealed her identity, no one was aware that the real woman behind the anonymous pseudonym was the renowned German Jewish feminist, Bertha Pappenheim. Born to a wealthy orthodox Jewish family in Vienna, Pappenheim was related to some of the most recognizable names in Jewish society - the Warburgs, Guggenheims and the Goldschmidt-Rothschilds. When her father became terminally ill, the then twenty-one-year-old developed s…