Studies // Cited work
Studien über Hysterie [Studies on hysteria]
Breuer, J., & Freud, S. (1895). Studien über Hysterie [Studies on hysteria].
Level E Book
What this study supports
Supports historical claims about the cathartic method and abreaction. Uncontrolled case reports cannot show whether the method was effective.
- Who was studied
- Clinical case descriptions of patients treated with the cathartic method.
- Design
- Book
- Level of evidence
- Theory, classical and historical texts, records and software: no empirical claim of their own.
Claims that rest on it
Each claim states what the site asserts, at what strength, and with what caveat.
HistoricalLevel EConfidence MODERATE
Breuer and Freud's cathartic method sought symptom relief through the discharge of emotion (abreaction), and Freud later abandoned it, partly because relief was often temporary.
- Scope
- The history of late nineteenth-century clinical practice.
- Caveat
- Freud's reasons for leaving the method are reconstructed from his later writings and historical accounts, which are not separately cited here.
Last reviewed · Review due · cathartic-method-relief-temporary
HistoricalLevel EConfidence MODERATE
The cathartic method rested on a discharge model in which affect attached to a memory maintained symptoms until it was expressed; this model is a historical theory, not an empirically established mechanism.
- Scope
- The theoretical assumptions of the cathartic method as described in Studies on Hysteria.
- Caveat
- Reconstructions of Breuer and Freud's model vary, and the uncontrolled case reports cannot show whether abreaction caused any improvement.
Last reviewed · Review due · cathartic-discharge-model-historical