A Dream of Undying Fame
How Freud Betrayed His Mentor and Invented Psychoanalysis
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- £9.99
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- £9.99
Publisher Description
In 1877, a young Freud met an established physician named Josef Breuer and they began a collaboration that would lead to the publication of the classic work, Studies on Hysteria. But by the time it released, Freud was moving to establish himself as a major figure in the treatment of mentally ill patients, and would let no one stand in his way. He consequently minimized Breuer's contributions, betraying his former mentor and benefactor.
In A Dream of Undying Fame, renowned psychologist Louis Breger narrates the story behind the creation of Studies as well as the case of Anna O., which helped contribute to Freud's definition of "neurosis." Breger reveals that Freud's own self-mythologizing and history not only affected everything he did in life, but also helped shape his emerging beliefs about psychoanalysis. Illustrating the importance of personality and social context behind an intellectual breakthrough, Breger provides an in-depth look at a field that reshaped our understanding of what it means to be human.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this follow-up to his biography Freud: Darkness in the Midst of Vision, Cal. Tech psychoanalysis professor Breger focuses on the work of Freud's collaborator, Josef Breuer, a well-recognized Viennese neurologist who was Freud's mentor and the co-author of Freud's first "groundbreaking" book, Studies in Hysteria, laying out the "essential features of psychoanalysis." It was after that that Freud, "in his quest for fame," disparaged Breuer and abandoned him completely. Where their views subsequently diverged-in the centrality of sexuality and the Oedipus complex-Breuer would ultimately be proven correct. Breuer believed that there were many contributory factors to hysteria, and called Freud's model an "overvaluation of sexuality"; for his part, Breger calls the rise of Freudian theory "one of the tragedies of psychoanalysis," turning psychology into "a cult-like 'cause,'" and leaving it to therapists "outside the psychoanalytical mainstream" to make the new discoveries (setting back, for instance, recognition of post-traumatic stress disorder by 50 years). This volume should interest people with a toe in the history of psychology, or those seeking to better understand the history of their own diagnosis.
