The trace of L'objet Petit O through the case of Anna O.

Josef Breuer, Anna O.'s analyst, at the end of his theoretical contribution to Studies on Hysteria, consoles himself and his readers regarding the incompleteness of the then current understanding on hysteria by quoting Theseus, Duke of Athens in A Midsummer Night's Dream. While Theseus, as spectator, says of the play "the best in this kind are but shadows, and the worst are now worse, if imagination amend them", Brener considers his "clumsy hypothesis" on hysteria as "gaping lacunas which have been concealed rattier than bridged".…