What do you think?
Rate this book
Freud: A Life for Our Time
To read this book is to enter the world of Sigmund Freud as never before: his family, his city, his professional struggles, his long, extraordinarily fruitful and embattled life. We see him at work in times of declining liberalism, devastating war, uneasy peace, the rise of Hitler and the fall of Austria. We watch him devising and revising his epoch-making theories. We are there as he struggles toward his discoveries, haunted by the problems he poses for himself, brooding over his publications, quarreling with his disciples. And we encounter Freud, always energetic, often troubled and sometimes vindictive, as his ideas spread from a small inner circle in Vienna, through Europe, across the ocean to the United States—and the world.
Drawing on a vast instructive store of unpublished documents, including hundreds of hitherto unknown or inaccessible letters, Peter Gay probes Freud's mind, uncovers Freud's passions, and follows Freud's astonishing career. He analyzes Freud the psychoanalyst as politician, seeking support for his controversial findings. He discloses for the first time the dimensions of Freud's love for his daughter Anna, and his unorthodox analysis of her. He offers a thoughtful, detailed, fascinating account of Freud's relations with such problematic followers as Jung and Ferenczi. He deals frankly with the controversies that have long swirled around Freud's impassioned friendships, his love life, and his theoretical innovations, which, as Freud himself put it, agitated the sleep of mankind.
Perhaps most important and rewarding of all. no previous biography has so securely integrated into Freud's life his case histories, technical papers, speculative aesthetics, and excursions into prehistory and cultural criticism. The sections scattered across this book in which Peter Gay lucidly expounds and explains Freud's theories of dreams and sexuality, development and neurosis, love and hate amount to a comprehensive—and comprehensible—liberal education in psychoanalytic thought, which is far more discussed than it is understood. Fitting as they do into Freud's most intimate concerns and cultural loyalties, these ideas gain a vivid life of their own.
The reader will long remember the Freud that Peter Gay reveals here—student, physician, psychologist, lover, husband, father, friend, founder, controversialist, Jew, victim, and victor. This book, brilliantly argued and brilliantly written, evokes an age, and the life and ideas of a man who, in W. H. Auden's phrase, is "no more a person now but a whole climate of opinion.
Drawing on a vast instructive store of unpublished documents, including hundreds of hitherto unknown or inaccessible letters, Peter Gay probes Freud's mind, uncovers Freud's passions, and follows Freud's astonishing career. He analyzes Freud the psychoanalyst as politician, seeking support for his controversial findings. He discloses for the first time the dimensions of Freud's love for his daughter Anna, and his unorthodox analysis of her. He offers a thoughtful, detailed, fascinating account of Freud's relations with such problematic followers as Jung and Ferenczi. He deals frankly with the controversies that have long swirled around Freud's impassioned friendships, his love life, and his theoretical innovations, which, as Freud himself put it, agitated the sleep of mankind.
Perhaps most important and rewarding of all. no previous biography has so securely integrated into Freud's life his case histories, technical papers, speculative aesthetics, and excursions into prehistory and cultural criticism. The sections scattered across this book in which Peter Gay lucidly expounds and explains Freud's theories of dreams and sexuality, development and neurosis, love and hate amount to a comprehensive—and comprehensible—liberal education in psychoanalytic thought, which is far more discussed than it is understood. Fitting as they do into Freud's most intimate concerns and cultural loyalties, these ideas gain a vivid life of their own.
The reader will long remember the Freud that Peter Gay reveals here—student, physician, psychologist, lover, husband, father, friend, founder, controversialist, Jew, victim, and victor. This book, brilliantly argued and brilliantly written, evokes an age, and the life and ideas of a man who, in W. H. Auden's phrase, is "no more a person now but a whole climate of opinion.
866 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1987
230 people are currently reading
3,161 people want to read
About the author
Peter Gay
125books145followersPeter Joachim Gay was a German-American historian, educator, and author. He was a Sterling Professor of History at Yale University and former director of the New York Public Library's Center for Scholars and Writers (1997�2003). He received the American Historical Association's (AHA) Award for Scholarly Distinction in 2004. He authored over 25 books, including The Enlightenment: An Interpretation, a two-volume award winner; Weimar Culture: The Outsider as Insider (1968); and the widely translated Freud: A Life for Our Time (1988).
Gay was born in Berlin in 1923, left Germany in 1939 and emigrated, via Cuba, to the United States in 1941. From 1948 to 1955 he was a political science professor at Columbia University, and then a history professor from 1955 to 1969. He left Columbia in 1969 to join Yale University's History Department as Professor of Comparative and Intellectual European History and was named Sterling Professor of History in 1984.
Gay was the interim editor of The American Scholar after the death of Hiram Haydn in 1973 and served on that magazine's editorial board for many years. Sander L. Gilman, a literary historian at Emory University, called Gay "one of the major American historians of European thought, period".
Gay was born in Berlin in 1923, left Germany in 1939 and emigrated, via Cuba, to the United States in 1941. From 1948 to 1955 he was a political science professor at Columbia University, and then a history professor from 1955 to 1969. He left Columbia in 1969 to join Yale University's History Department as Professor of Comparative and Intellectual European History and was named Sterling Professor of History in 1984.
Gay was the interim editor of The American Scholar after the death of Hiram Haydn in 1973 and served on that magazine's editorial board for many years. Sander L. Gilman, a literary historian at Emory University, called Gay "one of the major American historians of European thought, period".
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 80 reviews
July 20, 2010
Brilliant biography of Freud (probably the best since Ernest Jones’s three v. effort). Heavy emphasis on ideas, especially within the nineteenth century context (both bourgeois Vienna & 19th c. scientific -- e.g., Darwin & physiological school). Treats the psychoanalytic movement, in terms of its theory, technique, and, of course, its politics. Freud’s writings can be quite difficult and theory-laden. Gay skilfully navigates through Freud’s vast literary catalogue, providing both the personal (i.e., argumentative) and scientific context to help his audience gain access to Freud's rather towering intellect. Does an especially nice job weaving Freud’s personal life into the narrative; though, it must be reiterated: Gay spends the bulk of his biography wrestling with the nuances of Freud’s personal life as it relates to his theories. (Breuer, Fleiss, Jung, all figure prominently as Freud's personal oedipal figures.) Expounds expansively on the significance of Freud’s thought -- theoretical breakthroughs and as a cultural force. While Gay places Freud firmly within an Enlightened intellectual tradition, he also presents Freud as a dialectical thinker wrestling with speculative concepts like the metapsychology of human instinct and the nature of aggression in evolutionary biology. Gay's Freud is quite the sphinx. Indeed, his psychoanalytic concept of 'ambivalence' seems central if we hope to understand his personality & his work's significance. Freud left a fascinating and a subversive intellectual tradition.
Valuable for intellectual historians: frequent 8-10 page summaries of particular books and essays. Invaluable bibliographic essay. Note: Gay defends herein psychoanalysis as a legitimate technique for the historical discipline.
Valuable for intellectual historians: frequent 8-10 page summaries of particular books and essays. Invaluable bibliographic essay. Note: Gay defends herein psychoanalysis as a legitimate technique for the historical discipline.
March 28, 2020
Peter Gay's biography of Sigmund Freud--Freud: A Life for Our Time--is a deeply researched and far-reaching examination of one of the most provocative and influential thinkers of the modern era. Gay weaves three strands together with great skill: Freud the man, husband, father and friend; Freud the intellectual originator of a comprehensive theory of how the human mind works (including its component forces); and Freud the leader of a professional movement, psychoanalysis, as its preeminent practitioner and indefatigable defender of central psychoanalytic principles and practices.
Freud the man comes across as a fascinating composite of passions, quirks, loyalties, and, in the main, strengths. He wasn't born to wealth, certainly not to privilege, and made his way into medicine despite the antisemitic counterforces of the day, which were substantial. He was widely read, loved Shakespeare and Goethe and of course, Sophocles. He kept up an extensive correspondence that--like his published writing--reflects a powerful mind at ease in the fields of thought. His was highly dependent on one daughter, Anna, herself a psychoanalyst, and crushed when on of his brood died an early death (this happened more than once). He stayed married, happily enough, for sixty years. He had great friends among both men and women. He worked very, very hard. He spent a long time yearning for but gaining no recognition for his insights, and yet that didn't deter him from pursuing his ideas.
Freud the intellectual, who considered himself primarily a scientist, is given substantial, detailed treatment in this book. Gay points out strengths and weaknesses, both as they were apparent right away or became apparent over time, in his theories. Overall, of course, Gay is sympathetic to what we today would call Freudianism, but specifically as it emerged when it emerged, viewed historically, not propagandistically.
Freud the analyst and promoter of psychoanalysis is presented as tough minded, realistic, not always successful in keeping order in the house, and a person who from time to time anointed the wrong successor, notably Carl Jung. The Freud-Jung falling out is well told here; in this case, Jung gets the worst of it.
Gay enriches his text with good historical sketches, i.e., life in Vienna in the 1890s, WWI, the dreadful decade of the Twenties in Austria (and Germany), the rise of Nazism, and antisemitism throughout.
Understandably, if for some reason you hold Freud's work in contempt, you won't enjoy this book, but if you are neutral toward it or somewhat positive toward its monumental novelty (the unconscious. the dynamics of dreams, the revelations to be found in everyday life and jokes, the importance of earliest life experiences, the tensions between love and hate...one could go on), this is an absorbing, well-written and complete biography by a scholar in full control of his powerful, brilliant and endlessly creative subject.
Freud the man comes across as a fascinating composite of passions, quirks, loyalties, and, in the main, strengths. He wasn't born to wealth, certainly not to privilege, and made his way into medicine despite the antisemitic counterforces of the day, which were substantial. He was widely read, loved Shakespeare and Goethe and of course, Sophocles. He kept up an extensive correspondence that--like his published writing--reflects a powerful mind at ease in the fields of thought. His was highly dependent on one daughter, Anna, herself a psychoanalyst, and crushed when on of his brood died an early death (this happened more than once). He stayed married, happily enough, for sixty years. He had great friends among both men and women. He worked very, very hard. He spent a long time yearning for but gaining no recognition for his insights, and yet that didn't deter him from pursuing his ideas.
Freud the intellectual, who considered himself primarily a scientist, is given substantial, detailed treatment in this book. Gay points out strengths and weaknesses, both as they were apparent right away or became apparent over time, in his theories. Overall, of course, Gay is sympathetic to what we today would call Freudianism, but specifically as it emerged when it emerged, viewed historically, not propagandistically.
Freud the analyst and promoter of psychoanalysis is presented as tough minded, realistic, not always successful in keeping order in the house, and a person who from time to time anointed the wrong successor, notably Carl Jung. The Freud-Jung falling out is well told here; in this case, Jung gets the worst of it.
Gay enriches his text with good historical sketches, i.e., life in Vienna in the 1890s, WWI, the dreadful decade of the Twenties in Austria (and Germany), the rise of Nazism, and antisemitism throughout.
Understandably, if for some reason you hold Freud's work in contempt, you won't enjoy this book, but if you are neutral toward it or somewhat positive toward its monumental novelty (the unconscious. the dynamics of dreams, the revelations to be found in everyday life and jokes, the importance of earliest life experiences, the tensions between love and hate...one could go on), this is an absorbing, well-written and complete biography by a scholar in full control of his powerful, brilliant and endlessly creative subject.
August 23, 2007
Disagree with two of the reviewers below: Gay is not unbearly biased in favor of Freud, book is not too much for casual dabblers in the subject.
First, one could hardly expect a six hundred page biography of Freud to be authored by someone who hates the man. Important to be realistic about who writes books in the first place.
Second, Freud was a prolific writer, and the book doesn't shy away from in depth analysis, so really it's like two three hundred page books. Now, if that's too much Freud for you, you're probably not that interested in the first place.
I like to read biographies of thinkers who left behind copious amount of published work. That way, it's easier to get a sense of what you want to read (if anything) by the author.
Because much of Freud's work revolves around family life, his family life is more then usually interesting. It's impossible to appreciate the originality of Freud's thought without having a firm context for HIS everyday life.
This book provides a balanced reading of Freud's controverial life. I found the bad to be included as much as the good. Freud's influence on the 20th century has been so profound that even if you completely disagree with the man (over, say, his attitude towards women), it is still rewarding to learn about his thought.
First, one could hardly expect a six hundred page biography of Freud to be authored by someone who hates the man. Important to be realistic about who writes books in the first place.
Second, Freud was a prolific writer, and the book doesn't shy away from in depth analysis, so really it's like two three hundred page books. Now, if that's too much Freud for you, you're probably not that interested in the first place.
I like to read biographies of thinkers who left behind copious amount of published work. That way, it's easier to get a sense of what you want to read (if anything) by the author.
Because much of Freud's work revolves around family life, his family life is more then usually interesting. It's impossible to appreciate the originality of Freud's thought without having a firm context for HIS everyday life.
This book provides a balanced reading of Freud's controverial life. I found the bad to be included as much as the good. Freud's influence on the 20th century has been so profound that even if you completely disagree with the man (over, say, his attitude towards women), it is still rewarding to learn about his thought.
May 29, 2020
Fenomenală biografie! De fapt, un roman în toată puterea cuvântului. Iar citirea lui, pe lângă că a fost o muncă titanică pentru mine, mi-a procurat infinite satisfacții de ordin intelectual. Și sufletești!
Freud, “prietenul� și sfetnicul meu din adolescență, a rămas favoritul meu dintre toți psihanaliștii. Îl citesc încă din anii '90 (Totem și tabu, Moise..., Interpetarea viselor etc). Nici cele mai deplasate speculații sau intuiții ale sale nu m-au șocat îndeajuns încât să-l resping sau să-i rezist. Chiar consider că multe căi de interpretare au rămas încă deschise de el și neexploatate de urmașii săi psy.
Omul ăsta avea niște intuiții nemilos de clare despre semenii săi. Îl preocupa până la obsesie explicarea proceselor psihice, a motivațiilor din spatele actelor noastre.
Deși mi-a demolat credința într-o serie de iluzii dragi, dar inutile, am ajuns să-l iubesc pe Freud pentru că mi-a fost un “însoțitor� de preț în cei mai frământați și mai frumoși ani. Mi-a pus în mâini un mod de a gândi & de a analiza care, de atunci, a devenit o inseparabilă parte din ceea ce sunt eu ca întreg.
Freud, “prietenul� și sfetnicul meu din adolescență, a rămas favoritul meu dintre toți psihanaliștii. Îl citesc încă din anii '90 (Totem și tabu, Moise..., Interpetarea viselor etc). Nici cele mai deplasate speculații sau intuiții ale sale nu m-au șocat îndeajuns încât să-l resping sau să-i rezist. Chiar consider că multe căi de interpretare au rămas încă deschise de el și neexploatate de urmașii săi psy.
Omul ăsta avea niște intuiții nemilos de clare despre semenii săi. Îl preocupa până la obsesie explicarea proceselor psihice, a motivațiilor din spatele actelor noastre.
Deși mi-a demolat credința într-o serie de iluzii dragi, dar inutile, am ajuns să-l iubesc pe Freud pentru că mi-a fost un “însoțitor� de preț în cei mai frământați și mai frumoși ani. Mi-a pus în mâini un mod de a gândi & de a analiza care, de atunci, a devenit o inseparabilă parte din ceea ce sunt eu ca întreg.
February 6, 2017
While Ernest Jones' three-volume hagiography was sycophantic and defensive, with his own 1988 effort Peter Gay took derrière-licking to a whole new level—just in case you didn't think it possible after ploughing through his predecessor. One gets the image of Gay sighing with wistful admiration for the Master; his prose is infuriating, infantile, and gag-inducing. Yet the book is instructive, for, while Gay thought Freudian psychoanalysis a science, his hagiography reveals the extent to which Freud's pseudoscientific theories were autobiographical in origin and / or incredibly subjective. For this reason, Gay avoids getting zero stars.
March 29, 2024
Santa María de los Buenos Aires, qué librazo de Gay y qué obra y vida de Freud. Asombroso.
August 25, 2012
This book is good both as a biography and a presentation of Freud's ideas - in fact, Gay seems much more interested in Freud's thinking than he does in Freud's life. Though with Freud, that might be the only way to go, beyond his developing his theories and dealing with the internal politics of the psychoanalytic movement, Freud's life comes across as sort of humdrum. But the book does do a good job of following Freud's development, and it makes for a very interesting read.
The author is definitely sympathetic with psychoanalysis, maybe a little too much so. He likes to explain Freud's actions, and those of the other characters too, in psychoanalytic terms - you can understand the poetic justice of that, maybe, but still that's not my favorite style of biography. And it does get a bit heavy handed when Gay re-analyzes some of Freud's dreams from his work and comes up with "deeper" interpretations than Freud did. Even so, the book is well worth reading if you're interested in Freud.
The author is definitely sympathetic with psychoanalysis, maybe a little too much so. He likes to explain Freud's actions, and those of the other characters too, in psychoanalytic terms - you can understand the poetic justice of that, maybe, but still that's not my favorite style of biography. And it does get a bit heavy handed when Gay re-analyzes some of Freud's dreams from his work and comes up with "deeper" interpretations than Freud did. Even so, the book is well worth reading if you're interested in Freud.
April 18, 2018
Gay's doorstopper is an unexpectedly accessible account of Freud's life and works, in which narrative progression is deftly blended with thematic discussions of Freud's ideas and publications as well as broader political and cultural contexts.
By page 150 � less than a quarter of the way into the main text � Freud is already in his mid-forties, but there's only so much that can be fitted into a one-volume work and Gay's extensive treatment of the second half of his subject's life reflects the increasingly broad nature of Freud's output and activities once he had established himself, as well as his significance as a public figure and even celebrity. However, Gay's account of Freud's early years is engaging and informative: so many threads and connections in twentieth-century culture have some personal, familial or intellectual link back to the apartment at Berggasse 19, but it is important not to overlook the nineteenth-century milieu from which Freud in turn emerged. In particular, Gay notes the mentoring of "the great German physiologist" Ernst Wilhelm von Brücke, and Freud's early work translating Hippolyte Bernheim. This first part also deals with the breaks from Breuer and Fliess, Freud's rejection of the "seduction theory" (the unhappy legacy of which lives on in "recovered memory" therapy), and his regrettable early enthusiasm for cocaine (disastrous for his friend Fleischl-Marxow, that is).
Gay also provides portraits of Freud's circle, at some points tending towards digression � particularly as regards the rather needy figure of Sándor Ferenczi. Three female associates stand out: Lou Andreas-Salomé, who in turn had known Nietzsche ("was very fond of her", Freud wrote after her death, "strange to say without a trace of sexual attraction"); Marie Boneparte (the "energy devil", who, with help from Ernest Jones [biography reviewed here], facilitated Freud's escape from the Nazis to London), and of course his youngest daughter Anna. In a section called "The Dark Continent" Gay provides a roll-call of female friends � his one-time patient Hilda Doolittle, as well as Helene Deutsch, Joan Riviere, Jeanne Lampl-de Groot and Ruth Mack Brunswick � in mitigation of criticisms that Freud's analytic notions about women were overdetermined and deficient. Gay also tries to give Martha Freud her due, although Mrs Freud remains somewhat in the background after their courtship and wedding; they were happy, but she wasn't "a companion for her husband in his long and lonely progress towards psychoanalysis", and Freud, as a "principled atheist", quashed her wish to maintain some domestic religious expression.
Gay's American perspective comes through in certain passages: the author delights in recording the fulminations of various US pastors and moralists against Freud's work, and I was gratified that I anticipated during the discussion of Moses and Monotheism that Gay would include a comparative reference to Porgy and Bess. Gay psychoanalyses Freud's anti-Americanism, and one of the book's highlights is an account of Freud's ill-considered association with William Bullitt, which resulted in a polemical study of Woodrow Wilson that remained unpublished until 1967 (Gay suggests that Freud did it in part because he thought the project might bring in some money). In contrast, though, Freud's US-based nephew Edward Bernays gets only a passing reference, and there is no mention of his unwelcome suggestion that Freud might like to write a column for Cosmopolitan.
The book challenged some of what I thought I knew about Freud � while formal and non-demonstrative, he seems to have been a tender father; and his interest in telepathy gives the lie to the idea that he was an arch-reductionist (an impression I got from Jung's famous story � not mentioned by Gay � that Freud supposedly appeared disturbed and bewildered by a paranormal phenomenon). Freud was also indifferent about the end of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, thus undercutting the proposition that anger over this was his motive for the Wilson book. One interesting detail about Freud in translation is that the famous terms "Id", "Ego" and "Superego" are "Latinate inventions of the Standard Edition", and that Freud used normal German to refer to "the It", "the I" and "the Over-I".
In some places, I would have preferred a more detailed narrative � how exactly Freud came to become friends with Stefan Zweig, for example, is not clearly explained. At other times, though, the work is a page-turner. Perhaps the most dramatic moment is Anna Freud's interview with the Gestapo, for which Freud's physician Max Schur provided her with a suicide capsule in case things went badly. Kept waiting outside the office, Anna insisted on being seen, and in Gay's opinion this probably saved her life as it meant the interview was processed there and then and she was free to go.
One criticism that is often made of Gay's book is that it is uncritical, and that the author inevitably takes Freud's side in his feuds and broken friendships. This is indeed the case, notwithstanding Gay's acknowledgment of some of Freud's flaws and foibles. Gay notes the irregular nature of Freud's analysis with Anna, but there is no critical discussion of the reasonable suspicion her adult "sublimation" of sexual feeling may be evidence of damage. Further, while Fleiss's quackery is discussed in detail, Gay glosses odd ideas such as Freud's suggestion to Ernst Simmel that the institutionalized Princess Alice of Greece (Prince Philip's mother [biography reviewed here]) should be treated for mental delusions with "an exposure of the gonads to X-rays, in order to accelerate the menopause". Gay attempts to explain why Freud's idea that dreams are always wish-fulfilments is not non-falsifiable (nightmares being inverted wish-fulfilments), but I wasn't convinced.
More could perhaps also have been said about Freud's own neuroses � we see Freud the stoic facing cancer (caused by smoking) and finally opting for euthanasia, but the there isn't much sign of his famous "death anxiety". We are told, though, that Freud's telephone number, 14362, prompted a neurotic superstition: "He had published The Interpretation of Dreams at forty-three, and the last two digits, he was convinced, were an ominous monition that sixty-two was indeed to be his life's span." He was out by more than twenty years.
By page 150 � less than a quarter of the way into the main text � Freud is already in his mid-forties, but there's only so much that can be fitted into a one-volume work and Gay's extensive treatment of the second half of his subject's life reflects the increasingly broad nature of Freud's output and activities once he had established himself, as well as his significance as a public figure and even celebrity. However, Gay's account of Freud's early years is engaging and informative: so many threads and connections in twentieth-century culture have some personal, familial or intellectual link back to the apartment at Berggasse 19, but it is important not to overlook the nineteenth-century milieu from which Freud in turn emerged. In particular, Gay notes the mentoring of "the great German physiologist" Ernst Wilhelm von Brücke, and Freud's early work translating Hippolyte Bernheim. This first part also deals with the breaks from Breuer and Fliess, Freud's rejection of the "seduction theory" (the unhappy legacy of which lives on in "recovered memory" therapy), and his regrettable early enthusiasm for cocaine (disastrous for his friend Fleischl-Marxow, that is).
Gay also provides portraits of Freud's circle, at some points tending towards digression � particularly as regards the rather needy figure of Sándor Ferenczi. Three female associates stand out: Lou Andreas-Salomé, who in turn had known Nietzsche ("was very fond of her", Freud wrote after her death, "strange to say without a trace of sexual attraction"); Marie Boneparte (the "energy devil", who, with help from Ernest Jones [biography reviewed here], facilitated Freud's escape from the Nazis to London), and of course his youngest daughter Anna. In a section called "The Dark Continent" Gay provides a roll-call of female friends � his one-time patient Hilda Doolittle, as well as Helene Deutsch, Joan Riviere, Jeanne Lampl-de Groot and Ruth Mack Brunswick � in mitigation of criticisms that Freud's analytic notions about women were overdetermined and deficient. Gay also tries to give Martha Freud her due, although Mrs Freud remains somewhat in the background after their courtship and wedding; they were happy, but she wasn't "a companion for her husband in his long and lonely progress towards psychoanalysis", and Freud, as a "principled atheist", quashed her wish to maintain some domestic religious expression.
Gay's American perspective comes through in certain passages: the author delights in recording the fulminations of various US pastors and moralists against Freud's work, and I was gratified that I anticipated during the discussion of Moses and Monotheism that Gay would include a comparative reference to Porgy and Bess. Gay psychoanalyses Freud's anti-Americanism, and one of the book's highlights is an account of Freud's ill-considered association with William Bullitt, which resulted in a polemical study of Woodrow Wilson that remained unpublished until 1967 (Gay suggests that Freud did it in part because he thought the project might bring in some money). In contrast, though, Freud's US-based nephew Edward Bernays gets only a passing reference, and there is no mention of his unwelcome suggestion that Freud might like to write a column for Cosmopolitan.
The book challenged some of what I thought I knew about Freud � while formal and non-demonstrative, he seems to have been a tender father; and his interest in telepathy gives the lie to the idea that he was an arch-reductionist (an impression I got from Jung's famous story � not mentioned by Gay � that Freud supposedly appeared disturbed and bewildered by a paranormal phenomenon). Freud was also indifferent about the end of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, thus undercutting the proposition that anger over this was his motive for the Wilson book. One interesting detail about Freud in translation is that the famous terms "Id", "Ego" and "Superego" are "Latinate inventions of the Standard Edition", and that Freud used normal German to refer to "the It", "the I" and "the Over-I".
In some places, I would have preferred a more detailed narrative � how exactly Freud came to become friends with Stefan Zweig, for example, is not clearly explained. At other times, though, the work is a page-turner. Perhaps the most dramatic moment is Anna Freud's interview with the Gestapo, for which Freud's physician Max Schur provided her with a suicide capsule in case things went badly. Kept waiting outside the office, Anna insisted on being seen, and in Gay's opinion this probably saved her life as it meant the interview was processed there and then and she was free to go.
One criticism that is often made of Gay's book is that it is uncritical, and that the author inevitably takes Freud's side in his feuds and broken friendships. This is indeed the case, notwithstanding Gay's acknowledgment of some of Freud's flaws and foibles. Gay notes the irregular nature of Freud's analysis with Anna, but there is no critical discussion of the reasonable suspicion her adult "sublimation" of sexual feeling may be evidence of damage. Further, while Fleiss's quackery is discussed in detail, Gay glosses odd ideas such as Freud's suggestion to Ernst Simmel that the institutionalized Princess Alice of Greece (Prince Philip's mother [biography reviewed here]) should be treated for mental delusions with "an exposure of the gonads to X-rays, in order to accelerate the menopause". Gay attempts to explain why Freud's idea that dreams are always wish-fulfilments is not non-falsifiable (nightmares being inverted wish-fulfilments), but I wasn't convinced.
More could perhaps also have been said about Freud's own neuroses � we see Freud the stoic facing cancer (caused by smoking) and finally opting for euthanasia, but the there isn't much sign of his famous "death anxiety". We are told, though, that Freud's telephone number, 14362, prompted a neurotic superstition: "He had published The Interpretation of Dreams at forty-three, and the last two digits, he was convinced, were an ominous monition that sixty-two was indeed to be his life's span." He was out by more than twenty years.
August 9, 2022
Schwierig diese Biographie zu beurteilen. Ich habe das Buch ausgeliehen, weil es so gut bewertet wurde, als die Übersetzung herauskam. Es ist eine lange und sehr detailierte Biografie, bei der herausgestrichen wurde, dass sie Freud uns Zeitgenossen naher bringt als alle, die schon geschrieben waren.
Freud, der ja nicht nur andere analyisiert und ihnen half. (Der Begriff Heilung ist hier unangebracht) sondern sein Leben lang sich selbst befragte, und mit seinem Wissen über das Unbewusste auch sich selbst disziplinierte oder es zumindest versuchte.
Aber für mich war die Biografie zu umfangreich für mein Interesse, wiewohl sie einen sehr zugänglichen Stil hatte. Weshalb ich sie womöglich nicht zu Ende gelesen habe. Ist schon wieder Jahre, Jahrzehnte her.
Freud, der ja nicht nur andere analyisiert und ihnen half. (Der Begriff Heilung ist hier unangebracht) sondern sein Leben lang sich selbst befragte, und mit seinem Wissen über das Unbewusste auch sich selbst disziplinierte oder es zumindest versuchte.
Aber für mich war die Biografie zu umfangreich für mein Interesse, wiewohl sie einen sehr zugänglichen Stil hatte. Weshalb ich sie womöglich nicht zu Ende gelesen habe. Ist schon wieder Jahre, Jahrzehnte her.
April 5, 2020
Definitely more heavy on the biographical details than his theory, though the theory that is explained is explained pretty clearly, I think. Very interesting, and lucidly written, with all his feuds, and the last part of his life, escaping the Nazis.
I don't think this book is really as hagiographic as I was expecting based on some reviews I had read. It's not totally uncritical. But Gay does pretty much (implicitly) take Freud's side in feuds. That's the impression I got at least.
The chapter on Freud's view on women is very good, and the last chapter dealing with his escape from Vienna is very good. As a biography it feels hard to improve on this.
I don't think this book is really as hagiographic as I was expecting based on some reviews I had read. It's not totally uncritical. But Gay does pretty much (implicitly) take Freud's side in feuds. That's the impression I got at least.
The chapter on Freud's view on women is very good, and the last chapter dealing with his escape from Vienna is very good. As a biography it feels hard to improve on this.
June 13, 2019
A fantastic, deeply absorbing, erudite, elegant intellectual biography. The bulk of the discussion centers on Freud’s work, and the development of his ideas, with necessary sidenotes about his various feuds and power struggles with disciples and would-be peers. Borders on hagiography at times, but it remains a rich, fabulously researched resource for anyone interested in Freud’s body of work.
January 24, 2020
It might be just about time for a pro-Freud reading of Freud to take off again, now that the utter failure of drug-dependent psychiatry has become obvious. I'm not sure we need this one, though, which is extraordinarily long, includes masses of pretty much irrelevant detail, and mostly fails to clarify ideas that really aren't all that complicated. Gay's sentences are very nice in isolation, but they're not all that helpful when it comes to understanding what Freud was doing.
What lesson should we learn from this book? I got a hard cover from the first edition (not worth anything, of course). It is a beautiful object. It lies flat when open. The case is not glued, willy nilly, to the spine of the book. It has a full cloth cover. The paper might actually last into the next decade. Let's bring that back, and get someone to write a new, more concise, very slightly less, positive biography of Freud to go between the boards.
What lesson should we learn from this book? I got a hard cover from the first edition (not worth anything, of course). It is a beautiful object. It lies flat when open. The case is not glued, willy nilly, to the spine of the book. It has a full cloth cover. The paper might actually last into the next decade. Let's bring that back, and get someone to write a new, more concise, very slightly less, positive biography of Freud to go between the boards.
April 16, 2011
A pretty solid edited volume of the works of Freud. At the outset? A brief biography of Freud. The selection of Freud's works begins with a section entitled "The Making of a Psychoanalyst." Next "Classical Theory," including essays on dreams, on the case study of "Dora," and so on. Following this, sections on ""Therappy and Technique," "Psychoanalysis in Culture," "Transitions and Revisions," and "The Last Chapter." A decent selection of his works that will provide a nice background on the work of Freud.
December 8, 2020
I have been reading for a really long time and I could have read it a lot faster but I just wanted to take things slowly. It's an entire life in just shy of 700 pages, not something one should just threat like any regular book.
The author does a wonderful job of walking through Freud's life, his work, and what was happening in the world. Things that can't be separated. That we need to comprehend to truly grasp the past and the repercussions of it in life and one's work.
The author does a wonderful job of walking through Freud's life, his work, and what was happening in the world. Things that can't be separated. That we need to comprehend to truly grasp the past and the repercussions of it in life and one's work.
July 4, 2010
Amazing biography of Freud. Really genuinely deep and well-written portrait of an important man's life and work.
June 30, 2014
Finally finished the neverending story. It would have been much more palatable if the author hadn't put Freud and his psychoanalytical formulations on such a high pedestal...
May 30, 2016
Stupendous! A little less about psychology than I wanted. But a masterpiece nonetheless. From someone basically unfamiliar with Freud this book was as awesome introduction.
July 23, 2018
I wished this book would never end.
November 15, 2020
An extensive and comprehensive biography, which goes beyond his life because it analyzes his work and his legacy.
June 12, 2021
Sigmund Freud’s theory and practice of psychoanalysis was one of the most influential intellectual trends of the modern age alongside the ideas of Darwin, Marx, and Einstein. It should be no surprise that an extensive biography of this man would be written and it also would be expected that it would be dense and heavy on analysis of the king of all analysts. Peter Gay’s Freud: A Life for Our Time fulfills this necessity. It is largely a successful biography because it puts Freud’s ideas into context, showing how his theories were born from the social matrices of his family and career.
Freud grew up Jewish in the Austro-Hungarian empire in a town called Pribor which translates to “silverware� in Czech and is now a part of the Moravian half of the Czech Republic. His life growing up was not especially unique in any way. However, despite being a lifelong atheist, his Jewish identity had a strong impact on his thinking. In college he studied biology and eventually went into medicine. He spent one summer in the unusual pursuit of dissecting eels in search of their genitals as part of a research project investigating the hypothesis that these sea creatures are hermaphroditic. He was unable to find their private parts. Try psychoanalyzing that. For the most part, though, Freud’s younger years and family life were ordinary but Peter Gay does draw connections between the relationship he had with his parents and his development of psychoanalytical theory.
After becoming a physician, Freud found a new father figure in a doctor named Fliess. The elder man was a bit of a quack, utilizing hypnosis since some patients often complained of ailments when there was no obvious physical cause. These psychosomatic afflictions were later classified by Freud under the diagnosis of “hysteria� although “hypochondria� would be the more acceptable term these days. Freud came to realize that hypnosis did not ever cure these hysterias but he believed that those patients were legitimately suffering from something, more specifically something that originated in the mind. From there he developed his concepts of the unconscious, neuroses, the Oedipal complex, suppression, sublimation, and all the rest of the jargon that became associated with psychoanalysis.
The practice of psychotherapy was conducted by talking sessions in which the contents of thoughts, especially dreams and fantasies, were interpreted to reveal unresolved psychological conflicts that resulted from traumatic experiences suffered during a child’s infantile sexual development.
Not all of these theories were new. As Gay points out, religious mystics, artists, and poets had been alluding to the existence of the unconscious all throughout history and in a way, saying Freud discovered the unconscious is akin to saying that Columbus discovered America. But Freud did articulate this concept in a way that makes it accessible to more than just the artistic and intellectual elite whose concepts were vague to begin with. One example is the conflict between the pleasure principle and the reality principle that is mediated by the ego. This is a new version of the Dionysian-Apollonian dichotomy but Freud’s new conceptualization of this had wide ranging effects on our interpretations of history, religion, and human nature. These applications of analysis would be taken up later in his final literary works. In his own way, Freud was a giant standing on the shoulders of giants.
After mentioning Freud’s book publications, the establishment of the Viennese Psychoanalytic Society, and the rapid spread of interest in psychoanalysis, Peter Gay’s biography takes a major turning point when he writes about Freud’s famous case histories. It is here that we get a sense of how the theory is applied to practice. One interesting case was the Rat Man; this poor guy was tormented by dreams of having live rats stuffed up his butt and the torment was made worse because he sometimes enjoyed these dreams. This was half a century before the urban legend of gerbiling took hold of the American public’s imagination; maybe that urban legend was a product of anal-masochistic guilt expressed by adolescents who desired punishment from their fathers for having unconscious fantasies of transgression or something like that. The case of the Wolf Man was a curiosity too. This Russian aristocrat had a dream where a family of wolves were watching him from a tree and Freud interpreted it as a fantasy of sublimated sexuality. Although psychoanalysis quickly became popular, it seems that some of Freud’s interpretations were dubious at best from the start. But the psychoanalytic system had a logic of its own and the pieces all appeared to fit together. At the heart of this all is the Oedipus complex. Freud’s case histories were interesting and important but Gay could be faulted for not introducing this unconscious childhood fantasy until this section of the book. In fact, he never really explains it in detail. He just assumes that the readers know all about what it is. Older readers might get it all but younger readers may need to supplement this book with some research of their own.
Aside from Freud’s theories, practices, and publications, another major theme of this biography is the activities of the Viennese Psychoanalytic Society. Freud was respected by most other members of his organization but not everyone was happy. Power struggles were endemic and often manifested in the form of disagreements over theoretical concepts. The most notorious one happened between Freud and Carl Jung, who Freud had chosen to be his successor in the dissemination of psychoanalysis. But Jung had his own ideas, especially about religion and the occult, and chose to leave on unfriendly terms. Peter Gay demonstrates how how the analysts clashed and argued by analyzing each other and then Gay analyzes Freud’s analyses. If you want to analyze Gay’s interpretation of Freud’s analysis of the analysts then you will probably go crazy so it’s just best to take some of this in stride and don’t get too caught up in it.
Other topics covered are Freud’s later writings, his health problems in old age, his life during the two world wars, and his relationship with his daughter Anna who went on to become a prominent psychologist herself. And Peter Gay’s opinions about Freud are not entirely uncritical. For example, he points out some contradictions in Freud’s view of women which at times appeared favorable to the idea of sexual equality and at others not so much, especially in his rejection of the feminist movement. But that was mostly because Freud did not want psychoanalysis to become political. Another contradiction was that Freud’s ideas were subversive to bourgeois values yet psychoanalysis was used as a means of maintaining the status quo. Of course, nobody ever said that Freud did not have a complex mind.
One particular thing that left a gaping hole in this biography is an examination of Freud’s legacy. The book abruptly ends when Freud dies. The influence of this great thinker has never gone away so what does the author make of that? We never find out. A critical examination of Freud’s theories would be useful too. Psychoanalysis is now widely considered to be a pseudoscience and not many people buy the ideas of infantile fantasies in all the details Freud laid out. There is no doubt that children have ambiguous feelings about their parents and that they go through different stages in the development of their sexuality but there is no way of verifying what happens in their unconscious as these processes take place. By designing a theoretical system, Freud invented a way of shaping and molding people’s understanding of their own minds but this leads to the uncomfortable conclusion that the Oedipus complex was implanted by the analyst rather than being revealed through the process of therapy. Furthermore, Freud’s system is overtly authoritarian in nature and can be interpreted as a means of trapping and containing libidinal energy rather than liberating it from neuroses.
In the long run, we still can not be entirely sure what to make of Freud. Was he important only from a historical perspective? Can we disregard him altogether? Did he have some ideas that are worth holding on to? Answering those questions is a task for future generations. He appears to have been right about the structure of the psyche while the minute details are completely wrong. At least Peter Gay did not indulge in such details like the belief that forks and spoons are phallic symbols while shoes and windows are unconsciously thought of as your mother’s vagina. Sparing us these details was a wise editorial decision since they would distract the reader from some of the more significant issues that Freud grappled with.
Freud: A Life for Our Time is as good a biography as we could hope to get. Peter Gay’s Germanic writing style, by which I mean anal-retentive in his attention to detail, makes it a long and plodding read but at least he focused on the right things and wisely chose what parts to leave out. Freud was a pioneer in the exploration of the mind’s contents and his life is worthy of being written out in one good, responsibly written book. There is no character-assassination or yellow journalism here. If you only read one book on Freud, this one should be it.
Freud grew up Jewish in the Austro-Hungarian empire in a town called Pribor which translates to “silverware� in Czech and is now a part of the Moravian half of the Czech Republic. His life growing up was not especially unique in any way. However, despite being a lifelong atheist, his Jewish identity had a strong impact on his thinking. In college he studied biology and eventually went into medicine. He spent one summer in the unusual pursuit of dissecting eels in search of their genitals as part of a research project investigating the hypothesis that these sea creatures are hermaphroditic. He was unable to find their private parts. Try psychoanalyzing that. For the most part, though, Freud’s younger years and family life were ordinary but Peter Gay does draw connections between the relationship he had with his parents and his development of psychoanalytical theory.
After becoming a physician, Freud found a new father figure in a doctor named Fliess. The elder man was a bit of a quack, utilizing hypnosis since some patients often complained of ailments when there was no obvious physical cause. These psychosomatic afflictions were later classified by Freud under the diagnosis of “hysteria� although “hypochondria� would be the more acceptable term these days. Freud came to realize that hypnosis did not ever cure these hysterias but he believed that those patients were legitimately suffering from something, more specifically something that originated in the mind. From there he developed his concepts of the unconscious, neuroses, the Oedipal complex, suppression, sublimation, and all the rest of the jargon that became associated with psychoanalysis.
The practice of psychotherapy was conducted by talking sessions in which the contents of thoughts, especially dreams and fantasies, were interpreted to reveal unresolved psychological conflicts that resulted from traumatic experiences suffered during a child’s infantile sexual development.
Not all of these theories were new. As Gay points out, religious mystics, artists, and poets had been alluding to the existence of the unconscious all throughout history and in a way, saying Freud discovered the unconscious is akin to saying that Columbus discovered America. But Freud did articulate this concept in a way that makes it accessible to more than just the artistic and intellectual elite whose concepts were vague to begin with. One example is the conflict between the pleasure principle and the reality principle that is mediated by the ego. This is a new version of the Dionysian-Apollonian dichotomy but Freud’s new conceptualization of this had wide ranging effects on our interpretations of history, religion, and human nature. These applications of analysis would be taken up later in his final literary works. In his own way, Freud was a giant standing on the shoulders of giants.
After mentioning Freud’s book publications, the establishment of the Viennese Psychoanalytic Society, and the rapid spread of interest in psychoanalysis, Peter Gay’s biography takes a major turning point when he writes about Freud’s famous case histories. It is here that we get a sense of how the theory is applied to practice. One interesting case was the Rat Man; this poor guy was tormented by dreams of having live rats stuffed up his butt and the torment was made worse because he sometimes enjoyed these dreams. This was half a century before the urban legend of gerbiling took hold of the American public’s imagination; maybe that urban legend was a product of anal-masochistic guilt expressed by adolescents who desired punishment from their fathers for having unconscious fantasies of transgression or something like that. The case of the Wolf Man was a curiosity too. This Russian aristocrat had a dream where a family of wolves were watching him from a tree and Freud interpreted it as a fantasy of sublimated sexuality. Although psychoanalysis quickly became popular, it seems that some of Freud’s interpretations were dubious at best from the start. But the psychoanalytic system had a logic of its own and the pieces all appeared to fit together. At the heart of this all is the Oedipus complex. Freud’s case histories were interesting and important but Gay could be faulted for not introducing this unconscious childhood fantasy until this section of the book. In fact, he never really explains it in detail. He just assumes that the readers know all about what it is. Older readers might get it all but younger readers may need to supplement this book with some research of their own.
Aside from Freud’s theories, practices, and publications, another major theme of this biography is the activities of the Viennese Psychoanalytic Society. Freud was respected by most other members of his organization but not everyone was happy. Power struggles were endemic and often manifested in the form of disagreements over theoretical concepts. The most notorious one happened between Freud and Carl Jung, who Freud had chosen to be his successor in the dissemination of psychoanalysis. But Jung had his own ideas, especially about religion and the occult, and chose to leave on unfriendly terms. Peter Gay demonstrates how how the analysts clashed and argued by analyzing each other and then Gay analyzes Freud’s analyses. If you want to analyze Gay’s interpretation of Freud’s analysis of the analysts then you will probably go crazy so it’s just best to take some of this in stride and don’t get too caught up in it.
Other topics covered are Freud’s later writings, his health problems in old age, his life during the two world wars, and his relationship with his daughter Anna who went on to become a prominent psychologist herself. And Peter Gay’s opinions about Freud are not entirely uncritical. For example, he points out some contradictions in Freud’s view of women which at times appeared favorable to the idea of sexual equality and at others not so much, especially in his rejection of the feminist movement. But that was mostly because Freud did not want psychoanalysis to become political. Another contradiction was that Freud’s ideas were subversive to bourgeois values yet psychoanalysis was used as a means of maintaining the status quo. Of course, nobody ever said that Freud did not have a complex mind.
One particular thing that left a gaping hole in this biography is an examination of Freud’s legacy. The book abruptly ends when Freud dies. The influence of this great thinker has never gone away so what does the author make of that? We never find out. A critical examination of Freud’s theories would be useful too. Psychoanalysis is now widely considered to be a pseudoscience and not many people buy the ideas of infantile fantasies in all the details Freud laid out. There is no doubt that children have ambiguous feelings about their parents and that they go through different stages in the development of their sexuality but there is no way of verifying what happens in their unconscious as these processes take place. By designing a theoretical system, Freud invented a way of shaping and molding people’s understanding of their own minds but this leads to the uncomfortable conclusion that the Oedipus complex was implanted by the analyst rather than being revealed through the process of therapy. Furthermore, Freud’s system is overtly authoritarian in nature and can be interpreted as a means of trapping and containing libidinal energy rather than liberating it from neuroses.
In the long run, we still can not be entirely sure what to make of Freud. Was he important only from a historical perspective? Can we disregard him altogether? Did he have some ideas that are worth holding on to? Answering those questions is a task for future generations. He appears to have been right about the structure of the psyche while the minute details are completely wrong. At least Peter Gay did not indulge in such details like the belief that forks and spoons are phallic symbols while shoes and windows are unconsciously thought of as your mother’s vagina. Sparing us these details was a wise editorial decision since they would distract the reader from some of the more significant issues that Freud grappled with.
Freud: A Life for Our Time is as good a biography as we could hope to get. Peter Gay’s Germanic writing style, by which I mean anal-retentive in his attention to detail, makes it a long and plodding read but at least he focused on the right things and wisely chose what parts to leave out. Freud was a pioneer in the exploration of the mind’s contents and his life is worthy of being written out in one good, responsibly written book. There is no character-assassination or yellow journalism here. If you only read one book on Freud, this one should be it.
December 31, 2024
“Vi Monique pela primeira vez quando visitei Fliess durante sua doença[…] essa cidade parece ter adquirido uma forte conexão com minha relação com esse homem. Há um elemento de sentimento homossexual incontrolável na raíz da questão�.
- Freud sobre o motivo de seu triplo desmaio na sala do Park Hotel
“Mas por trás de todos esses sentimentos, estava aquela completa ruína, impossível de ser facilmente ignorada ou rapidamente liquidada: seus antigos sentimentos apaixonados por - e contra - Fliess.�
Confesso que senti uma sensação estranhamente parecida lendo yaoi na pré adolescência
- Freud sobre o motivo de seu triplo desmaio na sala do Park Hotel
“Mas por trás de todos esses sentimentos, estava aquela completa ruína, impossível de ser facilmente ignorada ou rapidamente liquidada: seus antigos sentimentos apaixonados por - e contra - Fliess.�
Confesso que senti uma sensação estranhamente parecida lendo yaoi na pré adolescência
March 13, 2022
Bello e Interessante seguire la fondazione della psicoanalisi
pag.110 _______________________________
Accumulando e ordinando i vari tasselli di quel grande mosaico che è la mente umana, Freud sviluppa a poco a poco le idee psicoanalitiche e quel vocabolario psicoanalitico che verso la fine del secolo entrerà nell'uso corrente. Freud tiene Fliess perfettamente informato sulle idee che va sviluppando e modificando, e manda a Berlino una salva di bozzetti, aforismi, sogni, per non parlare delle "minute" o appunti per i lavori e le monografie - nelle quali annota le proprie scoperte e verifica le proprie idee: minute sull'ansia, sulla melanconia, sulla paranoia. "Un uomo come me," dice Freud a Fliess, nell'anno in cui pubblica gli Studi, con la boria del ricercatore invasato, "non può vivere senza un hobby, senza una passione dominante, senza un tiranno, per dirla con Schiller, ed esso si è presentato sul mio cammino. E adesso non conosco moderazione nel servirlo. È la psicologia.
pag.178 _______________________________
All'epoca di Freud, questi autosondaggi sono ormai un luogo comune nei salotti e nei caffè di Vienna. Il diciannovesimo secolo è il secolo psicologizzante per eccellenza. È il periodo in cui le autobiografie intime, gli autoritratti informali, i romanzi con riferimenti personali, i diari intimi e i diari segreti diventano una fiumana, e aumenta notevolmente la loro soggettività e la voluta interiorità. I decenni di Byron e di Stendhal, di Nietzsche e di William James, mietono nel diciannovesimo secolo ciò che Rousseau, con le sue Confessioni dolorosamente sincere, e Goethe, con i suoi Dolori del giovane Werther, autodilaniatori e autoliberatori, hanno seminato nel diciottesimo. Thomas Carlyle, con intuito, definisce la sua epoca "questi nostri tempi autobiografici�. Ma questa nuova preoccupazione per il Sé non si traduce affatto in un vantaggio: "La chiave di questo periodo," dirà nei suoi ultimi anni Ralph Waldo Emerson, "sembrerebbe risiedere nel fatto che la mente ha preso consapevolezza di sé." Ma con questa "'nuova coscienza"', pensa, «i giovani nascono con un bisturi nella testa, con la tendenza all'introversione, all'autodissezione. all'anatomia dei motivi�. È un'epoca di Amleti.
…e avvicinarsi un po� nella vita di un genio, così determinante nel pensiero moderno sul concetto di inconscio.
pag.214 _______________________________
Regolarità non significa rigidità. Freud riesce a cambiare idea su alcuni dei punti ai quali tiene maggiormente. Ancor più gli piacciono le organizzazioni senza formalità e gli altrettanto informali accordi con editori e traduttori, che daranno origine a molte confusioni. Tranne che sui principi fondamentali della psicoanalisi, quali la sessualità infantile, l'etiologia sessuale delle nevrosi o il lavoro di rimozione, Freud è aperto a tutti gli spunti teorici o terapeutici promettenti, anzi, ne è avido. L'improvvisazione non gli fa paura. La sua conversazione, alla pari dello stile epistolare, è un modello di lucidità e di pregnanza, ricca di formulazioni originali. La sua passione per i motti di spirito, imperniati soprattutto su storielle ebraiche, e una memoria insuperabile per le citazioni appropriate da poeti e scrittori, gli conferiscono, nel parlare e nello scrivere, il dono impareggiabile della sorpresa azzeccata. E, per generale ammissione, un conferenziere avvincente, dall'esposizione lenta, chiara, vigorosa. All'università, ricorda Wittels, parla "senza appunti per quasi due ore, e gli ascoltatori rimangono aftascinati. Il suo "metodo espositivo è quello dell'umanista tedesco, alleggerito da un tono discorsivo acquisito probabilmente a Parigi. Nessuna pomposità, nessun manierismo". Anche nelle dissertazioni più strettamente tecniche, trapelano continuamente il suo umorismo e la sua semplicità. Gli piace immensamente, scrive Wittels, "usare il metodo socratico: Interrompe l'esposizione formale e fa domande o sollecita commenti. Quando sopraggiungono obiezioni, le attronta energicamente e con spirito"
…che con coraggio perseguì la sue convinzioni e innovazioni nonostante le critiche
pag.258 _______________________________
Questo rifiuto fondato sull'ignoranza viene corroborato da evidenti prove tanto in Europa quanto negli Stati Uniti. I congressi degli specialisti in malattie mentali ignorano le idee di Freud e plaudono a chi le denuncia come una farragine di affermazioni fantasiose e non dimostrate o (più divertente) come un disgustoso insieme di indecenze. Dopo che Freud, nel 1905, pubblica i Tre saggi sulla teoria sessuale, quanti sono inclini ad accusarlo di essere un torbido pansessualista trovano, ovviamente, pane per i loro denti. Definiscono Freud un "libertino viennese", i lavori psicoanalitici "storie pornografiche a proposito di candide vergini", e il metodo psicoanalitico una "masturbazione mentale". Nel maggio del 1906, a un congresso di neurologi e psichiatri che si tiene a Baden-Baden, Gustav Aschaffenburg, professore di neurologia e psichiatria a Heidelberg, liquida brevemente il metodo psicoanalitico in quanto errato, opinabile e superfluo.
Mi voglio appuntare alcuni paragrafi,
sulla guerra:
pag.457 _______________________________
Ed ecco che nel 1915, parlando a nome suo e di altri ragionevoli europei, Freud pubblica un paio di lavori sul disinganno generato dalla guerra e sul moderno atteggiamento nei confronti della morte, un'elegia su una civiltà che si autodistrugge. La premessa è, scrive Freud, che finché esisteranno nazioni con livelli economici e culturali diversi, le guerre saranno inevitabili. "Noi osavamo sperare in qualcosa di diverso" e cioè che i capi delle "grandi nazioni di razza bianca che dominano il mondo, occupati come sono a coltivare interessi che abbracciano il mondo intero", fossero capaci " di risolvere i conflitti di interesse in altro modo". Geremia ha detto che la guerra è il destino dell'uomo. "Non abbiamo voluto crederci, ma come avremmo potuto immaginare questa guerra, se non fosse sopraggiunta?" Come una questione di eroiche virtù che, risparmiando i civili, sarebbe stato "un cavalleresco ricorso alle armi". È una fine intuizione: la maggior parte di coloro che invocano il potere purificante di una grande guerra, di fatto hanno in mente una versione salutare e romantica di remote battaglie. In realtà, aggiunge Freud, la guerra è degenerata in un conflitto più sanguinoso di tutti quelli che lo hanno preceduto, e ha dato adito a quel "fenomeno davvero inconcepibile" che è lo scoppio di odio e di disprezzo nei confronti del nemico. Freud, che poche cose riescono a stupire, stupisce davanti all'odioso spettacolo della natura umana in occasione della guerra.
pag.458 _______________________________
Secondo Freud, la psicoanalisi può mitigare queste impressioni collocandole nella giusta prospettiva. Esse si fondano su una visione della natura umana che non regge a una disamina realistica. Gli impulsi elementari, primitivi, dell'uomo, in sé né buoni né cattivi, cercano una via per esprimersi, ma sono ostacolati dai veti sociali e da freni interni. È un processo universale. Ma la pressione esercitata dalla civiltà moderna per addomesticare queste pulsioni è stata eccessiva, alla pari delle aspettative che ha riposto nel comportamento dell'uomo. La guerra, quanto meno, ha tolto a tutti l'illusione che l'umanità sia originariamente buona. Per la verità, i nostri concittadini "non sono per nulla caduti tanto in basso quanto temevamo, e ciò per il semplice fatto che non si trovavano prima alle altezze che avevamo immaginato"
…sulla psicologia
pag.459 _______________________________
Nel regno della finzione troviamo quella pluralità di vite di cui abbiamo bisogno
pag.572 _______________________________
Nella sua Introduzione alla psicoamalisi, Freud osserva in modo melodrammatico che la psicoanalisi ha inferto la terza storica ferita alla megalomania dell'uomo, Copernico ha stabilito che la terra non è il centro dell'universo; Darwin ha relegato l'uomo nel regno animale; e adesso lui; Freud, insegna al mondo che l'Io è largamente soggetto a forze psichiche inconsce e incontrollabili, Come aspettarsi, dunque, che il mondo capisca o anche solo gradisca un messaggio del genere?
…e anche sul suo coraggio, a 82 anni, con la Gestapo in casa
pag.797 _______________________________
Il lavoro, anche se poco, resta per Freud la migliore difesa contro la disperazione, Né lo abbandona completamente il suo caustico umorismo. Poco prima di lasciar partire i Freud, le autorità insistono perché Freud firmi una dichiarazione che non ha subito maltrattamenti, Freud firma e aggiunge: "Posso raccomandare vivamente la Gestapo a chicchessia - Ich kann die Gestapo jedermann aufdas beste empfehlen." E un gesto curioso, che induce a qualche ritlessione: Per fortuna, le SS che leggono la sua raccomandazione non colgono il pesante sarcasmo in essa contenuto.
___________________________________
WANT TO READ BOOK:
- Il carteggio Aspern (Henry James)
- L'interpretazione dei sogni (Sigmund Freud)
- Totem e tabù e altri saggi di antropologia (Sigmund Freud)
- Introduzione alla psicoanalisi (Sigmund Freud)
- L'Io e l'Es (Sigmund Freud)
- Il disagio nella civiltà (Sigmund Freud)
- Mosè e il monoteismo (Sigmund Freud)
___________________________________
WANT TO READ SUBJECT: Carl Gustav Jung
pag.110 _______________________________
Accumulando e ordinando i vari tasselli di quel grande mosaico che è la mente umana, Freud sviluppa a poco a poco le idee psicoanalitiche e quel vocabolario psicoanalitico che verso la fine del secolo entrerà nell'uso corrente. Freud tiene Fliess perfettamente informato sulle idee che va sviluppando e modificando, e manda a Berlino una salva di bozzetti, aforismi, sogni, per non parlare delle "minute" o appunti per i lavori e le monografie - nelle quali annota le proprie scoperte e verifica le proprie idee: minute sull'ansia, sulla melanconia, sulla paranoia. "Un uomo come me," dice Freud a Fliess, nell'anno in cui pubblica gli Studi, con la boria del ricercatore invasato, "non può vivere senza un hobby, senza una passione dominante, senza un tiranno, per dirla con Schiller, ed esso si è presentato sul mio cammino. E adesso non conosco moderazione nel servirlo. È la psicologia.
pag.178 _______________________________
All'epoca di Freud, questi autosondaggi sono ormai un luogo comune nei salotti e nei caffè di Vienna. Il diciannovesimo secolo è il secolo psicologizzante per eccellenza. È il periodo in cui le autobiografie intime, gli autoritratti informali, i romanzi con riferimenti personali, i diari intimi e i diari segreti diventano una fiumana, e aumenta notevolmente la loro soggettività e la voluta interiorità. I decenni di Byron e di Stendhal, di Nietzsche e di William James, mietono nel diciannovesimo secolo ciò che Rousseau, con le sue Confessioni dolorosamente sincere, e Goethe, con i suoi Dolori del giovane Werther, autodilaniatori e autoliberatori, hanno seminato nel diciottesimo. Thomas Carlyle, con intuito, definisce la sua epoca "questi nostri tempi autobiografici�. Ma questa nuova preoccupazione per il Sé non si traduce affatto in un vantaggio: "La chiave di questo periodo," dirà nei suoi ultimi anni Ralph Waldo Emerson, "sembrerebbe risiedere nel fatto che la mente ha preso consapevolezza di sé." Ma con questa "'nuova coscienza"', pensa, «i giovani nascono con un bisturi nella testa, con la tendenza all'introversione, all'autodissezione. all'anatomia dei motivi�. È un'epoca di Amleti.
…e avvicinarsi un po� nella vita di un genio, così determinante nel pensiero moderno sul concetto di inconscio.
pag.214 _______________________________
Regolarità non significa rigidità. Freud riesce a cambiare idea su alcuni dei punti ai quali tiene maggiormente. Ancor più gli piacciono le organizzazioni senza formalità e gli altrettanto informali accordi con editori e traduttori, che daranno origine a molte confusioni. Tranne che sui principi fondamentali della psicoanalisi, quali la sessualità infantile, l'etiologia sessuale delle nevrosi o il lavoro di rimozione, Freud è aperto a tutti gli spunti teorici o terapeutici promettenti, anzi, ne è avido. L'improvvisazione non gli fa paura. La sua conversazione, alla pari dello stile epistolare, è un modello di lucidità e di pregnanza, ricca di formulazioni originali. La sua passione per i motti di spirito, imperniati soprattutto su storielle ebraiche, e una memoria insuperabile per le citazioni appropriate da poeti e scrittori, gli conferiscono, nel parlare e nello scrivere, il dono impareggiabile della sorpresa azzeccata. E, per generale ammissione, un conferenziere avvincente, dall'esposizione lenta, chiara, vigorosa. All'università, ricorda Wittels, parla "senza appunti per quasi due ore, e gli ascoltatori rimangono aftascinati. Il suo "metodo espositivo è quello dell'umanista tedesco, alleggerito da un tono discorsivo acquisito probabilmente a Parigi. Nessuna pomposità, nessun manierismo". Anche nelle dissertazioni più strettamente tecniche, trapelano continuamente il suo umorismo e la sua semplicità. Gli piace immensamente, scrive Wittels, "usare il metodo socratico: Interrompe l'esposizione formale e fa domande o sollecita commenti. Quando sopraggiungono obiezioni, le attronta energicamente e con spirito"
…che con coraggio perseguì la sue convinzioni e innovazioni nonostante le critiche
pag.258 _______________________________
Questo rifiuto fondato sull'ignoranza viene corroborato da evidenti prove tanto in Europa quanto negli Stati Uniti. I congressi degli specialisti in malattie mentali ignorano le idee di Freud e plaudono a chi le denuncia come una farragine di affermazioni fantasiose e non dimostrate o (più divertente) come un disgustoso insieme di indecenze. Dopo che Freud, nel 1905, pubblica i Tre saggi sulla teoria sessuale, quanti sono inclini ad accusarlo di essere un torbido pansessualista trovano, ovviamente, pane per i loro denti. Definiscono Freud un "libertino viennese", i lavori psicoanalitici "storie pornografiche a proposito di candide vergini", e il metodo psicoanalitico una "masturbazione mentale". Nel maggio del 1906, a un congresso di neurologi e psichiatri che si tiene a Baden-Baden, Gustav Aschaffenburg, professore di neurologia e psichiatria a Heidelberg, liquida brevemente il metodo psicoanalitico in quanto errato, opinabile e superfluo.
Mi voglio appuntare alcuni paragrafi,
sulla guerra:
pag.457 _______________________________
Ed ecco che nel 1915, parlando a nome suo e di altri ragionevoli europei, Freud pubblica un paio di lavori sul disinganno generato dalla guerra e sul moderno atteggiamento nei confronti della morte, un'elegia su una civiltà che si autodistrugge. La premessa è, scrive Freud, che finché esisteranno nazioni con livelli economici e culturali diversi, le guerre saranno inevitabili. "Noi osavamo sperare in qualcosa di diverso" e cioè che i capi delle "grandi nazioni di razza bianca che dominano il mondo, occupati come sono a coltivare interessi che abbracciano il mondo intero", fossero capaci " di risolvere i conflitti di interesse in altro modo". Geremia ha detto che la guerra è il destino dell'uomo. "Non abbiamo voluto crederci, ma come avremmo potuto immaginare questa guerra, se non fosse sopraggiunta?" Come una questione di eroiche virtù che, risparmiando i civili, sarebbe stato "un cavalleresco ricorso alle armi". È una fine intuizione: la maggior parte di coloro che invocano il potere purificante di una grande guerra, di fatto hanno in mente una versione salutare e romantica di remote battaglie. In realtà, aggiunge Freud, la guerra è degenerata in un conflitto più sanguinoso di tutti quelli che lo hanno preceduto, e ha dato adito a quel "fenomeno davvero inconcepibile" che è lo scoppio di odio e di disprezzo nei confronti del nemico. Freud, che poche cose riescono a stupire, stupisce davanti all'odioso spettacolo della natura umana in occasione della guerra.
pag.458 _______________________________
Secondo Freud, la psicoanalisi può mitigare queste impressioni collocandole nella giusta prospettiva. Esse si fondano su una visione della natura umana che non regge a una disamina realistica. Gli impulsi elementari, primitivi, dell'uomo, in sé né buoni né cattivi, cercano una via per esprimersi, ma sono ostacolati dai veti sociali e da freni interni. È un processo universale. Ma la pressione esercitata dalla civiltà moderna per addomesticare queste pulsioni è stata eccessiva, alla pari delle aspettative che ha riposto nel comportamento dell'uomo. La guerra, quanto meno, ha tolto a tutti l'illusione che l'umanità sia originariamente buona. Per la verità, i nostri concittadini "non sono per nulla caduti tanto in basso quanto temevamo, e ciò per il semplice fatto che non si trovavano prima alle altezze che avevamo immaginato"
…sulla psicologia
pag.459 _______________________________
Nel regno della finzione troviamo quella pluralità di vite di cui abbiamo bisogno
pag.572 _______________________________
Nella sua Introduzione alla psicoamalisi, Freud osserva in modo melodrammatico che la psicoanalisi ha inferto la terza storica ferita alla megalomania dell'uomo, Copernico ha stabilito che la terra non è il centro dell'universo; Darwin ha relegato l'uomo nel regno animale; e adesso lui; Freud, insegna al mondo che l'Io è largamente soggetto a forze psichiche inconsce e incontrollabili, Come aspettarsi, dunque, che il mondo capisca o anche solo gradisca un messaggio del genere?
…e anche sul suo coraggio, a 82 anni, con la Gestapo in casa
pag.797 _______________________________
Il lavoro, anche se poco, resta per Freud la migliore difesa contro la disperazione, Né lo abbandona completamente il suo caustico umorismo. Poco prima di lasciar partire i Freud, le autorità insistono perché Freud firmi una dichiarazione che non ha subito maltrattamenti, Freud firma e aggiunge: "Posso raccomandare vivamente la Gestapo a chicchessia - Ich kann die Gestapo jedermann aufdas beste empfehlen." E un gesto curioso, che induce a qualche ritlessione: Per fortuna, le SS che leggono la sua raccomandazione non colgono il pesante sarcasmo in essa contenuto.
___________________________________
WANT TO READ BOOK:
- Il carteggio Aspern (Henry James)
- L'interpretazione dei sogni (Sigmund Freud)
- Totem e tabù e altri saggi di antropologia (Sigmund Freud)
- Introduzione alla psicoanalisi (Sigmund Freud)
- L'Io e l'Es (Sigmund Freud)
- Il disagio nella civiltà (Sigmund Freud)
- Mosè e il monoteismo (Sigmund Freud)
___________________________________
WANT TO READ SUBJECT: Carl Gustav Jung
March 31, 2007
鰿Í
... la salud de Freud hacía frente a la tensión con valentía; se veía sin embargo condenado a la pasividad, que él detestaba. Para pasar el tiempo, mientras aguardaba que los nuevos dueños del poder aprendieran su oficio y pusieran fin a sus tropelías, clasificó y ordenó sus libros, sus antigüedades, sus papeles. Se desembarazó de títulos que no le interesaban, e intentó tirar cartas y documentos, aunque Marie Bonaparte y Anna Freud lograron rescatar algunas para la posteridad, recogiéndolas del cesto de los papeles (...) Incluso halló energía para dedicarse un poco a dar algunos toques a su Moisés y la religión monoteísta. El 6 de mayo, el embajador Wilson informó al secretario de Estado, desde Berlín, que el funcionario de la Gestapo a cargo del caso Freud no veía más que un obstáculo para la partida: el arreglo de las deudas de Freud con su editor. Pero ese único asunto ocupó más tiempo de lo que se esperaba. Tres días más tarde, le escribió a su hijo Ernst que " el vigor juvenil y la energía optimista de Anna, afortunadamente, no se han visto conmovidos. De no ser así, habría sido difícil incluso soportar la vida". Volviendo a una antigua preocupación, añadió un comentario sobre las diferencias entre hombres y mujeres: " En general, las mujeres resisten mejor que los hombres". En ese momento Freud ya había aceptado por completo la idea de emigrar (...) El trabajo, aunque fuera poco trabajo, seguía siendo para Freud la mejor de las defensas contra la desesperación. Su sentido sarcástico del humor, por otra parte, no lo había abandonado por completo. Inmediatamente antes de dejarlo salir, las autoridades insistieron en que firmara una declaración dejando bien claro que no se le había sometido a ningún tipo de malos tratos. Freud lo hizo, añadiendo un comentario: "Puedo darles a todos las más altas recomendaciones de la Gestapo" ("Ich kann die Gestapo jederman auf das beste empfehlen"). Se trata de algo curioso que invita a hacer especulaciones. Freud tuvo la suerte de que los hombres de las SS que leyeron su recomendación no advirtieran la ironía oculta. Nada habría sido más natural que considerar ofensivas sus palabras. ¿Por qué, entonces, en el momento de la liberación, corrió conscientemente ese riesgo mortal? ¿Actuaba algo en Freud que lo empujaba a permanecer, y morir, en Viena? Fuera cual fuere la razón profunda, su "elogio" de la Gestapo fue el último desafío de Freud en suelo austríaco.
PETER GAY, Freud. Una vida de nuestro tiempo. Ed. Paidós, 1989.
... la salud de Freud hacía frente a la tensión con valentía; se veía sin embargo condenado a la pasividad, que él detestaba. Para pasar el tiempo, mientras aguardaba que los nuevos dueños del poder aprendieran su oficio y pusieran fin a sus tropelías, clasificó y ordenó sus libros, sus antigüedades, sus papeles. Se desembarazó de títulos que no le interesaban, e intentó tirar cartas y documentos, aunque Marie Bonaparte y Anna Freud lograron rescatar algunas para la posteridad, recogiéndolas del cesto de los papeles (...) Incluso halló energía para dedicarse un poco a dar algunos toques a su Moisés y la religión monoteísta. El 6 de mayo, el embajador Wilson informó al secretario de Estado, desde Berlín, que el funcionario de la Gestapo a cargo del caso Freud no veía más que un obstáculo para la partida: el arreglo de las deudas de Freud con su editor. Pero ese único asunto ocupó más tiempo de lo que se esperaba. Tres días más tarde, le escribió a su hijo Ernst que " el vigor juvenil y la energía optimista de Anna, afortunadamente, no se han visto conmovidos. De no ser así, habría sido difícil incluso soportar la vida". Volviendo a una antigua preocupación, añadió un comentario sobre las diferencias entre hombres y mujeres: " En general, las mujeres resisten mejor que los hombres". En ese momento Freud ya había aceptado por completo la idea de emigrar (...) El trabajo, aunque fuera poco trabajo, seguía siendo para Freud la mejor de las defensas contra la desesperación. Su sentido sarcástico del humor, por otra parte, no lo había abandonado por completo. Inmediatamente antes de dejarlo salir, las autoridades insistieron en que firmara una declaración dejando bien claro que no se le había sometido a ningún tipo de malos tratos. Freud lo hizo, añadiendo un comentario: "Puedo darles a todos las más altas recomendaciones de la Gestapo" ("Ich kann die Gestapo jederman auf das beste empfehlen"). Se trata de algo curioso que invita a hacer especulaciones. Freud tuvo la suerte de que los hombres de las SS que leyeron su recomendación no advirtieran la ironía oculta. Nada habría sido más natural que considerar ofensivas sus palabras. ¿Por qué, entonces, en el momento de la liberación, corrió conscientemente ese riesgo mortal? ¿Actuaba algo en Freud que lo empujaba a permanecer, y morir, en Viena? Fuera cual fuere la razón profunda, su "elogio" de la Gestapo fue el último desafío de Freud en suelo austríaco.
PETER GAY, Freud. Una vida de nuestro tiempo. Ed. Paidós, 1989.
September 30, 2023
A lot of my assumptions about Freud as an individual have been challenged after reading this.
I used to believe that Freud was:
- Very serious and never made jokes.
- Unscientific, as psychoanalysis is often viewed as a 'philosophical theory.'
I also believed that psychodynamic theories are less relevant today. This last point kept me away from reading Freud because I feared I wouldn't be able to distinguish which of his theories have been refined or challenged by contemporary thinkers.
A recent podcast I listened to used the analogy of a map to describe different theoretical approaches in psychology. Each theory is like a map to the mind, and each has its own set of advantages and disadvantages. Psychodynamic therapy is one of the maps available to us.
I would recommend anyone studying psychology to read Freud's work because it is thanks to Freud that we have the study of Psychology and the practice of therapy. The skeleton that Freud gave birth to for therapy is alive today.
I used to believe that Freud was:
- Very serious and never made jokes.
- Unscientific, as psychoanalysis is often viewed as a 'philosophical theory.'
I also believed that psychodynamic theories are less relevant today. This last point kept me away from reading Freud because I feared I wouldn't be able to distinguish which of his theories have been refined or challenged by contemporary thinkers.
A recent podcast I listened to used the analogy of a map to describe different theoretical approaches in psychology. Each theory is like a map to the mind, and each has its own set of advantages and disadvantages. Psychodynamic therapy is one of the maps available to us.
I would recommend anyone studying psychology to read Freud's work because it is thanks to Freud that we have the study of Psychology and the practice of therapy. The skeleton that Freud gave birth to for therapy is alive today.
Read
May 6, 2021Though a bit unevenly interesting for the novice (me, for example), this book is written by someone who clearly has admiration for Freud’s work—though I was very grateful for the relatively in-depth expositions of the context in which his works were written, I’d have liked Gay to play devil’s advocate a bit more, placing their significance in light of more recent efforts in psychoanalysis. Nevertheless, the book did serve to place his works in chronology and in light of his contemporaries. Given the scope of the work, I can already tell this must’ve been extremely difficult! Also, I’ve never really understood Freud’s “progress� as such, so reading Gay’s biography of the founder of psychoanalysis has surely served as a primer for engaging with Freud’s works more intelligently� something I hope to do in the near future beginning with ‘Interpretation of Dreams.� It’s criminal that of all the works of Freud’s *that’s* the one I haven’t read!
April 6, 2010
This book by Peter Gay shows a lot of research and work to present to us a picture and understanding of Freud that you can hardly find elsewhere.
Freud was a complex person and the psychology that he spawned was complex as well. Though some things that he thought and taught have been changed by future generations and students, there is a remarkabale amount of work that is still good and used today.
Freud was the one who began the process of getting us to look at ourselves and to understand ourselves and the problems that we have overcome and those which tend to oversome us.
I found it to be a good read.
J. Robert Ewbank author "John Wesley, Natural Man, and the 'Isms'"
Freud was a complex person and the psychology that he spawned was complex as well. Though some things that he thought and taught have been changed by future generations and students, there is a remarkabale amount of work that is still good and used today.
Freud was the one who began the process of getting us to look at ourselves and to understand ourselves and the problems that we have overcome and those which tend to oversome us.
I found it to be a good read.
J. Robert Ewbank author "John Wesley, Natural Man, and the 'Isms'"
May 22, 2019
Phew----this tome is a lot of Freud. I had to stop once or twice and read something else. This story is intense, however I enjoyed every word. With Freud being one of my favorite heroes I was overwhelmed with his accomplishments. In conversation, when Freud is brought up, people scatter and shake their heads. He was a true believer in psychotherapy and if it wasn't for his dedication we would not be where we are today with mental health.
If you think Freud is hogwash then don't read the book. You need to be a true believer as he was to understand the importance of his work. I applaud the dedication, research, and writing style of Peter Gay to give us such a reading treat
If you think Freud is hogwash then don't read the book. You need to be a true believer as he was to understand the importance of his work. I applaud the dedication, research, and writing style of Peter Gay to give us such a reading treat
September 2, 2020
This is by far one of the best biographies I have ever read. It was so thorough and very well-written, and illustrates how great of a researcher Gay is. This book covered the different aspects of Sigmund Freuds life from beginning to end and all that is in between. Whether you agree with Freud’s theories or not, he lives an interesting life that was kind of a rollercoaster ride. Very interesting work that is definitely worth reading.
May 22, 2020
I was surprised, in a positive way, by the extent to which the author delved into Freud's theories and work methods. The extent of it was unexpected. Exceptionally well-written overall and entertaining. It seemed more favorably disposed, or perhaps less critical, of Freud's conclusions than I am, but perhaps that is besides the point. Highly recommended for anyone looking for a serious biography and not just a popular history.
July 11, 2020
Overall I thought this was a very good biography of Freud and provided decent context around his writings and perspectives on psychoanalytic while not being a psychology book.
I gave it three starts vs four only because I found the approach the author took in writing it frustrating at times. Because the author focused on specific topics from beginning to end, there are significant overlaps in the content as the content of many topics happened simultaneously
Definitely worth reading
I gave it three starts vs four only because I found the approach the author took in writing it frustrating at times. Because the author focused on specific topics from beginning to end, there are significant overlaps in the content as the content of many topics happened simultaneously
Definitely worth reading
Displaying 1 - 30 of 80 reviews
Can't find what you're looking for?
Get help and learn more about the design.