Mental health as well as emotion in general were topics that were overlooked during the late eighteen hundreds. Doctors had almost no knowledge of psychological illnesses which ultimately meant there was no definite treatment. It was believed these conditions were to pertain to females, for the most part, so, doctors often thought these strong surges of emotion were exaggerated. In Freud’s “Five Lectures On Psychoanalysis” he expressed his concerns regarding physicians mistreating patients suffering from hysteria. He criticized their methods of practice and ignorance which led to the detriment of patients. In Charlotte Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” she voices Freud’s concerns regarding doctors’ treatment for hysteria by describing John’s attitude towards his wife, and his apparent ignorance. 

Freud’s lecture is relative to “The Yellow Wallpaper”as his message of doctors mistreating patients with hysteria is conveyed through Gilman’s short story. Freud states in Lecture 1 “But all his knowledge – his training in anatomy, in physiology and in pathology – leaves him in the lurch when he is confronted by the details of hysterical phenomena.” (Freud 2201). This is seen through John’s actions as he insists he knew the remedy that was needed, prescribing the narrator the “resting cure”. He rejects any thoughts she has, thus pressuring her to suppress any emotions. Though in fact being unable to communicate her feelings exacerbated her disease.  “John does not know how much I really suffer. He knows there is no reason to suffer, and that satisfies him” (Gilman 649). Due to John’s misunderstanding of his wife’s real concerns and his perception of her condition, Freud’s claim that doctors have little concern when it comes to hysterical patients is evident. 

Freud reveals that Breuer was one of the first physicians to express interest in treating hysteria, rather than denying that it was not an illness.“Dr. Breuer’s attitude towards his patient deserved no such reproach. He gave her both sympathy and interest, even though, to begin with, he did not know how to help her.”(Freud 2202). Breuer tried to understand his patients’ condition and handled them with care instead of following a path of ignorance. He used methods that would ultimately cure patients symptoms, the “talking cure” otherwise humorously known as “chimney-sweeping”. Which was undoubtedly different than what John had prescribed in “The Yellow Wallpaper.” According to Freud, in time this cure would do more than just offer a temporary relief in one’s mental state, rather it would allow the debilitating effects of their illness to fade.(Freud 2203). Freud notes that Dr. Breurer’s methods of trying to understand hysteria and the process of “chimney sweeping” were the most effective and successful in that time. This meaning treatment was available yet the ignorance of other physicians blinded them from seeing such. 

Inevitably, the criticism of many of these doctors by Freud represented John’s own actions. The indifference John possessed did not permit him to understand the Narrator and her needs, fitting his persona into what Freud perceived most doctors to be. Unless John had sympathized with and treated the Narrator appropriately as Breuer had with his patient, perhaps she may have been healed. The “resting cure” that was prescribed and the narrator’s symptoms being undermined in “The Yellow Wallpaper” attests to what Freud believed in Lecture 1 addressing doctors mistreating patients suffering hysteria.