"...The first study, the analysis of a case of hysteria, is a famous one--everybody knows Dora, or should--and with good reason. Freud commented with some perceptive asperity that he was aware that “in this town, at least, there are many physicians who (revolting though it may seem) choose to read a case history of this kind not as a contribution to the psychopathology of neuroses, but as a roman à clef designed for their private delectation.” We do not see any reason why physicians should be singled out in this derogatory fashion; probably everybody wondered who Dora really was, as well as Herr B... and the K…’s. Freud also felt the necessity to defend his candor in discussing sexual matters, throwing a cold shower on the whole business by asserting that “it would be a mark of a singular and perverse prurience to suppose that conversations of this kind are a good means of exciting or of gratifying sexual desire.” For ourselves, such remarks are actually rather titillating. So let us lose no time in exploring the edification available in that remarkable landmark of psychoanalytic history, The Case of Dora B----."