Two pioneering doctors and five female patients met in a fortunate moment for science, from which this book emerged. One was a patient of Breuer, while the other four were patients of Freud.

Alongside a theoretical section, the two doctors delve into the core of the book, each discussing separately the stories of these five women, who, with their psychological issues, could be women from our own neighborhood. Despite their illness, hysteria, or perhaps because of it, they were so intelligent and, in a sense, healthy, that they greatly contributed to the birth of a new chapter in the history of psychotherapy.

One of them stands out: the famous patient of Breuer, "Anna O.", who provided the impetus for the "cathartic method" to emerge during her treatment, upon which psychoanalysis was later based. The other four patients, whose cases Freud discusses, prompted Freud to write four brilliant historical accounts, which, as he himself notes, are free from scientific burden and read as literary narratives.