ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Emma Eckstein

Emma Eckstein was a woman who lived a long time ago, around 150 years ago. She was important because she was one of the first people to talk about and study the idea that people's problems could be caused by things happening in their brains.

Emma was really interested in medicine, and she became a nurse and later a doctor. She studied a lot about how our bodies work and how to make sick people feel better. She also talked a lot about how mental health was just as important as physical health.

One of the things that Emma is most famous for is her work on the idea of "hysteria". Hysteria was a term that was used to describe a lot of different symptoms that women experienced, like feeling anxious, having trouble breathing, or feeling like they were going crazy. Doctors at the time didn't really understand what caused hysteria, and they often suggested that women who were experiencing it should just rest and take it easy.

But Emma believed that hysteria was caused by something in the brain, and that it could be treated with a kind of talk therapy. This was a really new idea at the time, and a lot of people didn't believe her. But after a while, more and more doctors started to see that Emma was right, and that talking to patients about their problems really did help.

Emma continued to work as a doctor and a writer for the rest of her life. She wrote a lot of really important books and articles about mental health, and she helped to change the way that people thought about and treated people with mental health problems. Even though she lived a really long time ago, her ideas are still important today!