Pardon His French: A Note On Freud's Dora

In a single sentence of Sigmund Freud's case study Fragments of an Analysis of a Case of Hysteria, commonly referred to as Dora, Freud chooses to express himself in French rather than in his native German, using the idiomatic expression "J'appelle un chat un chat" ("to call a spade a spade."). Hawthorne shows that an analysis of Freud's use of French with this phrase illuminates aspects of the case that have already been identified, such as the issue of counter-transference that Freud realized was at stake in his relationship with the patient. Adapted from the source document