Open access
“Private Theatre” as Theatrum Mundi: The Case of Anna O. in a Socio-Cultural Perspective
Maciej POPŁAWSKI1
Publication language: Polish
scientific paper
Transformations No. 3(126)2025, Publication date: 30 September 2025
Keywords: psychotherapy trauma therapeutic culture psychoanalysis hysteria
Abstract In this article, I analyse the case of Anna O., as described by Joseph Breuer and Sigmund Freud, from a socio-cultural perspective. Her psychological suffering and physical symptoms are linked to a painful biographical event in the patient’s life. The “talking cure” and the cathartic method are presented as paths to liberation. By uncovering the past and articulating what has so far remained unspoken, it becomes possible to understand—and thus to heal—the symptoms. The journey into the past is intended to bring greater autonomy in the future. Anna O.’s therapy constitutes a founding myth of therapeutic culture, in which individual suffering is perceived as a personal (rather than collective) experience, while at the same time being narrated through the objectivising language of science and medicine. At the same time, the case of Anna O. highlights the social and cultural tension between emerging possibilities and enduring constraints, between potential and barriers, and the individual entangled within them, for whom illness becomes a way out. For women in the nineteenth century, who were unable either to fulfil social expectations or to relinquish the pressure of internalised standards, hysteria provided a form of relief from stress and demands within the family environment. In this way, the “private theatre”, as Anna O. described her inner experiences and conflicts, becomes in fact a theatrum mundi. The story of Anna O. is not merely a narrative about an individual, but also about the ways of coping with suffering that have been inscribed into the cultural therapeutic narrative.
Instytut Stosowanych Nauk Społecznych Uniwersytet Warszawski, Polska
ORCID: 0009-0007-5787-7734
E-mail: poplawskimc@gmail.com