Desire

Abstract

Abstract This chapter addresses the relationship between Flournoy and Smith and the psychologist’s theorizations of the unconscious through his studies of the medium. It contrasts Flournoy’s unconscious with Freud’s early discoveries through female hysteria. One of the most frequently cited stories in the history of psychoanalysis is that of Anna O., who developed a hysterical pregnancy as a consequence of the unexplored seduction in her analysis. In retracing a similar event shaping the dynamic between Smith and Flournoy, this chapter suggests that the vocabulary of labor and bearing illuminates the excesses of an unacknowledged desire. While Flournoy found in this event proof of the creativity and suggestibility of the unconscious self, Freud largely discovered the sexual nature of transference and countertransference through Anna O.’s story. This chapter concludes that Anna O. and Hélène Smith’s phantom pregnancies traced two different lineages for the discovery of the unconscious while illuminating women’s unrecognized labor in production of scientific discourse.

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