Psychoanalysis is a system of psychology originated by the Viennese physician Sigmund Freud in the 1890's and then further developed by himself, his students, and other followers. It consists of activities such as using methods for research into the human mind, a systematic knowledge about the mind, and a method for the treatment of psychological or emotional disorders. Psychoanalysis began with the discovery of “hysteria,” an illness with physical symptoms that occurred in a completely healthy physical body, such as a numbness or paralysis of a limb, loss of voice, or blindness. This state could be caused by unconscious wishes or forgotten memories. Many women of the 1800’s were diagnosed with hysteria, given the disorder was thought to be primarily female. Freud began telling his patients, through interpretations, what was going on inside the unconscious part of their minds, thus helping the unconscious become conscious. Many cases of hysteria were cured this way, and in 1895, Freud, along with another fellow physician, published their findings and theories on the study of hysteria. In The White Hotel by D. M. Thomas, the character Lisa does not exhibit the above form of hysteria, but rather a manifestation of reality. Her own reality has become too imprisoned, and she escapes it by creating another Lisa that is nothing like her person.The traditional psychoanalytical theory states that all human beings are born with instinctual drives that are constantly active even though a person is not usually conscious of them. Two drives, one for sexual pleasure and the other called aggression, motivate and propel most behaviors in people. Lisa creates a very intense sexual drive for her fictive person. Readers may speculate that this creation may have been brought about by experiences beginning at birth. In the infant, the libido supposedly first manifests itself by making the act of sucking the thumb an activity with pleasu...
