BERLIN, May 2 (UPI) -- The last living person known to have been treated by Sigmund Freud has talked for the first time about her 45-minute session with the father of psychoanalysis.
Margarethe Walter, 88, of Berlin, spoke before Saturday's 150th anniversary of Freud's birthday, for which celebrations are planned across Europe, The London Telegraph reported Tuesday.
Walter told the German newspaper Die Zeit she was taken to see the then 80-year-old Freud in Vienna in 1936.
"He had a small white beard, a grey suit and was a little bent forward," she said. "He was very frail-looking, but full of power. He asked my name, but my father answered. He asked about my school and my father answered. ... I sat there silent like an object that had been brought along."
She told the newspaper Freud then dismissed her father from the room in a friendly, but firm, manner.
Walter says Freud's subsequent advice resulted in her gaining enough self-confidence to detach herself from her father's rule and eventually pursue her own career, becoming a sculptress.
"He saved my life," she said.
