Miss Lucy R: A Case of Hysteria Treated by Sigmund Freud

  Miss Lucy R. suffered an extremely interesting case of hysteria that Sigmund Freud treated. The therapy began toward the end of 1892. The patient had been referred by Wilhelm Fliess, an otorhinolaryngologist. He was a friend and confidant of Freud and had a notable influence on him. You might wonder why Miss Lucy R. had been referred by an otolaryngologist to a neurologist who was, at the time, trying to make headway in his newly developed process of psychoanalysis. The truth of the matter was that Miss Lucy had been suffering a persistent olfactory hallucination, the smell of burnt…