Hysterical: Anna Freud's Story

(Paperback)

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Imagine growing up smart, ambitious, and queer in a home where your father Sigmund Freud thinks that women should aspire to be wives and calls lesbianism a gateway to mental illness. He also says that lesbianism is always caused by the father, and is usually curable by psychoanalysis.

Then he analyzes you.

Ultimately Anna Freud loved Dorothy Tiffany Burlingham (heir to the Tiffany fortune) for 54 years. They raised a family together and became psychoanalysts in their own right, specializing in work with children. But first Anna had to navigate childhood, adolescence, and early adulthood in a famous family where her kind of romantic longings were considered dangerous.

What was it like to grow up the lesbian daughter of the great Sigmund Freud Aside from Annas sexuality and from her fathers intrusive psychoanalysis of her, what were the Freud family's most closely closeted skeletons What is it about the birth of psychoanalysis that even today's psychoanalysts would prefer to keep secret How did Anna defy her father so thoroughly while continuing to love him and learn from him

Weaving a grand tale out of a pile of crazy facts, Hysterical: Anna Freud's Story lets the pioneering child psychologist freely examine the forces that shaped her life.

Reviews

Coffey presents an avidly researched, shrewd, and unnerving first novel that purports to be the lost autobiography of Anna Freud. Coffey offers some truly shocking disclosures about the Freud family in this complexly entertaining, sexually dramatic, acidly funny novel of genius and absurdity, insight and delusion, independence and loyalty. Illustrated with archival photographs and backed by a substantial bibliography, this is an electrifying, imaginative portrait of an overlooked historical figure of great significance: fascinating, courageous, and steadfast Anna Freud.' Booklist 'Though fiction, Hysterical is structured as an autobiography, with Annas voice assuming the narration. Its an interesting trick, and one Coffey pulls off quite wellshe captures Annas formality, smart but plain spoken, straightforward to the point of creating emotional distance. . . . Like a therapy session, Hysterical tunnels very deeply into Annas childhood experiencesthoughts, events, dreams, fantasiesand like a therapy session, the facets of what are revealed are at times disturbing and uncomfortable. Add to all that the inherent struggle between Sigmund and Anna, which twists and deepens as they both age, especially as Anna comes into her sexuality, and youve got a plot so rife with tension itll make you squirm. . . .' LAMBDA Literary 'Coffey's tale uses Jewish jokes and other humor to humanize the family dynamic, and delicately delineate the tension between Anna's devotion to her father and her enduring attachment to Dorothy Burlingham, an heir to the Tiffany fortune. [I]n this fictional version, Anna confesses: 'Of course in my account to Papa, I elaborated and lied. Personally, I think that honesty in psychoanalysis is over-rated.' O, The Oprah Magazine 'Completely absorbing and entirely believable, Hysterical is both a lovely work and a treasure. This is the book we all wish Anna Freud had had the courage to write. Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson, author and former Projects Director of The Freud Archives '[A] wonderfully insightful fictional glimpse into the Freud family dynamic and, most notably, its impact on Sigmunds theories about lesbianism. How did Freud pre receive the announcement that the daughter to whom he was closesthis right-hand girl and protgloved women How did he deal with her long domestic partnership with another woman Coffeys presentation of what may have happened between Sigmund and Anna is nuanced, intelligent, and wonderfully persuasive.' Lillian Faderman, author of Naked in the Promised Land: A Memoir 'Rebecca Coffey's imagination knows no bounds. She makes you believe this is exactly the way it all happened. HYSTERICAL is sad, funny, painful, strange, outrageous, and disturbing. If we can't have Anna's diaries, this is the next best thing.' Ellen Bass, author of The Courage to Heal Moving, irreverent, often very funny, and a remarkable tour de force, Hysterical lets us eavesdrop at the keyhole of the Freud family. And, oh, what we learn! Leonard Foglia, Broadway director of Thurgood, Wait Until Dark, and Master Class

Author Bio

REBECCA COFFEY is an award-winning print journalist, documentary filmmaker, and radio commentator. Coffey contributes regularly to Scientific American and Discover magazines. She blogs about sexuality, relationships, crime and punishment, social media, and psychology for Psychology Today, and is a broadcasting contributor to Vermont Public Radio's drive-time commentary series. Her most recent major work of journalism is the March 2012 eBook MURDERS MOST FOUL: And the School Shooters in Our Midst (Vook), which landed her appearances on Fox News, CBS Radio and NPR, among others. Her narrative nonfiction book UNSPEAKABLE TRUTHS AND HAPPY ENDINGS: Human Cruelty and the New Trauma Therapy (Sidran Press) was widely praised, and was named an Outstanding Academic Title by the American Library Association's Choice magazine. Her television documentaries about health and mental health have been broadcast nationally. Coffey is also a humorist. Her NIETZSCHE'S ANGEL FOOD CAKE: And Other "Recipes" for the Intellectually Famished was published by Beck and Branch in 2013. Other humor has appeared in McSweeney's Internet Tendency, The Rumpus, and a large handful of literary magazines and e-zines. For more on Rebeeca, go to http: //rebeccacoffey.com/hysterical-anna-freuds-story/