When hysteria was discovered medicine in general was not as advanced as it is today. Having this in mind, doctors did not know how to deal with it or how to find a cure for it. Doctors knew how to treat physical illness but when it came to mental or internal illness, hysteria included, they were not able to help at all. Freud touches this topic in his first Lecture. He tells how Dr. Breuer treated all his patients. This doctor-patient relationship is also reflected on “The Yellow Wall-Paper”.
During the majority of his first lecture Freud mentions Dr. Breuer. A doctor who dealt with hysteria before Freud. Throughout this Lecture Freud makes a comparison between how doctors treat their patients with hysteria and how Dr. Breuer does. To describe the relationship between doctors and their patients with hysteria Freud says “ He does not have the same sympathy for the former as for the latter: for the hysteric’s ailment is in fact far less serious and yet it seems to claim to be regarded as equally so.”. Taking into account the fact that doctors did not know pretty much anything about hysteria, lack of empathy was received by patients. The same lack of empathy we all have for the unknown. On the other hand, we have Dr. Breuer’s relationship with his patient who suffered from hysteria. Based on Freud’s words this relationship had both “sympathy and interest”. His patient was smart and eager enough to help Dr. Breuer help her.
Based on Freud’s testimony we can judge the relationship between John and his wife in “The Yellow Wall-Paper”. First of all, the lack of empathy was a normal thing between doctor and patient, John and his wife are not the exception. Throughout the story John starts showing signs of lack of empathy, communication and interest in his wife. As a physician, John diagnoses that his wife has hysteria. Since the beginning of the story we can perceive how John does not really care about his wife, only her illness. He just wants to cure her not paying attention to her needs. He loves her “He is very careful and loving, and hardly lets me stir without special direction.”, but he is more focused on her illness, her physical state rather than her emotional state. “I don’t like our room a bit. I wanted one downstairs that opened on the piazza and had roses all over the window, and such pretty old-fashioned chintz hangings! but John would not hear of it.”. Not even something as simple as her own room, he decides everything. Having in mind Freud’s declarations about the relationship between doctors and patients with hysteria we can apply this notion to “The Yellow Wall-Paper”. John shows lack of empathy towards his wife, even though he loves her, the same way doctors treated patients with hysteria.
In conclusion, the relationship between doctor and patients with hysteria mentioned by Freud are directly reflected by John and his wife. John shows lack of empathy for his own wife. Showing interest only in her illness not really in her.
Works Cited
Five Lectures on Psych-Aanalysis by Sigmund Freud,1910
“The Yellow Wall-Paper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman,1892
