Synopses & Reviews
Advance Praise for Louis Breger's FREUD
"Louis Breger's rich and readable study of Freud offers a thoughtfully complex account of a great but flawed man. Everyone with an interest in psychoanalysis and the psychoanalytic movement will enjoy exploring, grappling with, arguing about, and learning from this absolutely fascinating book."-JUDITH VIORST, AUTHOR,
Necessary Losses and Imperfect Control "Written with brilliance and insight, Freud: Darkness in the Midst of Vision takes us on a daring, at times chilling, journey to the early years of psychoanalysis, revealing both the human weaknesses and the professional triumphs of its founder. . . . Cutting away the accretions of fabrication and romance cloaking Sigmund Freud, Breger has reinstated historical honesty to its rightful, high place, but the figure who emerges at the end of this breathlessly honest biography is quite as extraordinary as the legend concocted by Freud and perpetuated by his followers. Fresh, vigorous, and lucid."-PHILIP M. BROMBERG, Ph.D., CLINICAL PROFESSOR OF PSYCHOLOGY, NEW YORK UNIVERSITY
"Louis Breger's fine new biography of Freud is a welcome contribution to the existing literature and a corrective to much of it. It is also one of the best intellectual histories of the origin and development of psychoanalysis I have read in recent years. Breger is to be commended for his original research, the objectivity of his views, and the elegance and grace of his writing."-DEIRDRE BAIR, NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER FOR Samuel Beckett AND AUTHOR OF A FORTHCOMING BIOGRAPHY OF CARL JUNG
"Finally, the Freud biography we have long been waiting for. With the history of Europe in the background, we follow with fascination Freud's journey from an impoverished childhood filled with losses to worldly fame, ending in exile in England. We come to understand the impact of Freud's difficult personality on the development of his brilliant as well as questionable theoretical ideas. Breger writes with compassion and fairness toward Freud as well as toward the many interesting personalities who cross his life, with their complicated relationships to the great man."-SOPHIE FREUD, FREUD'S GRANDDAUGHTER AND PROFESSOR EMERITUS OF SOCIAL WORK, SIMMONS COLLEGE
"Louis Breger's magnificent book is the definitive work on the personal psychology of Sigmund Freud. it brilliantly illuminates how the darkness in Freud's vision has affected psychoanalytic history. This book will be central for psychoanalytic scholarship for decades to come."-GEORGE E. ATWOOD, Ph.D., PROFESSOR OF PSYCHOLOGY, RUTGERS UNIVERSITY
Synopsis
Freud: Darkness in the Midst of Vision ist eine neue gro e Biographie einer der wohl umstrittensten und einflu reichsten Pers nlichkeiten der j ngeren Geschichte - Sigmund Freud (1856-1939). Er ist der geheimnisvolle Begr nder der Psychoanalyse, ein Mann, der einen enormen Einflu auf unser modernes Denken hatte. berall auf der Welt kennt man sein Gesicht - das weise, grauhaarige Genie mit seiner Zigarre, dem ordentlich gestutzten Bart und dem Ma anzug; der Psychoanalytiker, dessen Blick die Tiefen der menschlichen Seele zu durchdringen scheint. Aber was wir von Freud bislang nicht wu ten, ist da er hart an seinem Image arbeitete. Es ist ein wesentlicher Bestandteil eines pers nlichen Mythos, das er ber die Jahre gepflegt hat; eine Vision seines Lebens, die teils Wahrheit, teils Phantasie ist.
Dieses fl ssig geschriebene Buch analysiert und entr tselt das Geheimnis um Freud und zeigt auf, da alles, was er tat und schrieb von seinem Bed rfnis gepr gt war, ein neues, heldenhaftes Selbst zu schaffen und seine Urspr nge zu vernichten. Indem er dieses Ziel erreichte, schuf er sowohl eine pers nliche Legende als auch die Geschichte der psychoanalytischen Bewegung.
Synopsis
"Finally, the Freud biography we have long been waiting for."Sophie Freud, Freuds granddaughter and Professor Emeritus of Social Work, Simmons College
More Praise for Freud: Darkness in the midst of Vision
"Rich and readable . . . a thoughtfully complex account of a great but flawed man. . . absolutely fascinating."Judith Viorst, author, Necessary Losses and Imperfect Control
"A foray into the past that matters a great deal."The New York Times Book Review
"Masterly . . . this landmark work conveys a new sense of one of the great flawed men and movements of the last century."Library Journal (starred review)
"Groundbreaking . . . Freudian analysis (literally) at its best."Booklist
"Perceptive . . . Bregers sane and lucid study must henceforth count among the indispensable books on Freud."Times Literary Supplement
"Highly readable . . . Breger maintains a judiciously skeptical distance from Freud and Freuds own self-mythologizing, yet never loses sympathy for the man himself."J. M. Coetzee, winner of the Booker Prize
Synopsis
"Finally, the Freud biography we have long been waiting for."Sophie Freud, Freuds granddaughter and Professor Emeritus of Social Work, Simmons College
More Praise for Freud: Darkness in the midst of Vision
"Rich and readable . . .a thoughtfully complex account of a great but flawed man. . . absolutely fascinating."Judith Viorst, author, Necessary Losses and Imperfect Control
"A foray into the past that matters a great deal."The New York Times Book Review
"Masterly . . . this landmark work conveys a new sense of one of the great flawed men and movements of the last century."Library Journal (starred review)
"Groundbreaking . . . Freudian analysis (literally) at its best."Booklist
"Perceptive . . . Bregers sane and lucid study must henceforth count among the indispensable books on Freud."Times Literary Supplement
"Highly readable . . . Breger maintains a judiciously skeptical distance from Freud and Freuds own self-mythologizing, yet never loses sympathy for the man himself."J. M. Coetzee, winner of the Booker Prize
About the Author
LOUIS BREGER is Professor of Psychoanalytic Studies, Emeritus, at the California Institute of Technology and founding President of the Institute of Contemporary Psychoanalysis. He has been a practicing psychotherapist/psychoanalyst for over thirty-five years and has published numerous scholarly articles and books dealing with dreams, personality development, literary interpretation, and psychoanalytic theory.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments.
Introduction: "The Development of the Hero."
PART ONE: FREUD'S LIFE: THE FIRST THIRTY YEARS.
A Traumatic Infancy.
Childhood and Adolescence.
The Early Adult Years: Searching for an Identity.
Opening Up: Martha, Cocaine, Fleischl.
Jean-Martin Charcot: "The Napoleon of Neuroses."
Martha: "The Loss on an Illusion."
PART TWO: THE BIRTH OF PSYCHOANALYSIS.
Josef Breuer and the Invention of Psychotherapy.
Breuer, Freud, and the Studies on Hysteria: 1886-1895.
The Break with Breuer.
Self-Analysis and the Invention of the Oedipus Complex.
The Interpretation of Dreams and the End of the Fliess Affair.
The Great Freud Emerges: 1899-1905.
PART THREE: THE PSYCHOANALYTIC MOVEMENT: 1902-1939.
The Psychoanalytic Movement: Images of War.
Alfred Adler: The First Dissident.
The King and His Knights: The Committee.
Carl Gustav Jung: The Favorite Son Expelled.
The First World War.
Trauma Revisited: The Neuroses of War.
Freud at Work: The Postwar Years.
Freud at Home.
Anna Freud: The Perfect Disciple.
Otto Rank: "I Was In Deepest of All."
"What Does a Woman Want?"
Sandor Ferenczi: The Wise Baby.
The Final Years.
Appendix: Psychoanalysis Interminable: Freud as a Therapist.
Background and Sources.
Notes.
Bibliography.
Credits.
Index.