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From the master of Freud debunkers, the book that definitively puts an end to the myth of psychoanalysis and its creatorSince the 1970s, Sigmund Freud's scientific reputation has been in an accelerating tailspin-but nonetheless the idea persists that some of his contributions were visionary discoveries of lasting value. Now, drawing on rarely consulted archives, Frederick Crews has assembled a great volume of evidence that reveals a surprising new Freud: a man who blundered tragicomically in his dealings with patients, who in fact never cured anyone, who promoted cocaine as a miracle drug capable of curing a wide range of diseases, and who advanced his career through falsifying case histories and betraying the mentors who had helped him to rise. The legend has persisted, Crews shows, thanks to Freud's fictive self-invention as a master detective of the psyche, and later through a campaign of censorship and falsification conducted by his followers.
A monumental biographical study and a slashing critique,
Freud: The Making of an Illusion will stand as the last word on one of the most significant and contested figures of the twentieth century.
List of contents
CONTENTSList of Illustrations xiii
A Note on Sources xv
Abbreviated Titles xvii
Preface 1
PART ONE: SIGMUND THE UNREADY
1: Between Identities 9
2: Getting By 24
3: Forsaking All Others 39
PART TWO: THE FIRST TEMPTATION
4: White Magic 57
5: A Friend in Need 74
6: The Wrong Discoverer 91
7: Expert Judgments 109
8: The Survivor 127
9: Exit, Pursued 140
PART THREE: BLIND SUBMISSION
10: A French Connection 157
11: The Travesty 172 12: Attachment Therapy 189
13: In Dubious Battle 212
PART FOUR: PLAYING DOCTOR
14: Medicine Man 239
15: Tending to Goldfish 258
16: Lessons Taken and Applied 275
17: Traumas on Demand 293
PART FIVE: HIS TURN TO SHINE
18: Now or Never 319
19: The Founding Deception 339
20: Adjusting the Record 361
21: Narrative Truth 380
22: Arraying the Neuroses 398
PART SIX: OFF THE DEEP END
23: The Secret Sharer 415
24: The Freudian Neuron 435
25: Diminished Capacity 452
26: Dire Therapy 466
27: Self-Seduced 486
28: The Breakthrough That Wasn't 506
29: The Labyrinth of Reproaches 519
PART SEVEN: LITTLE BIG MAN
30: Wishing Makes It So 543
31: Sexual Healing 563
32: The Unborn Avenger 578
33: Girl Trouble 590
34: A Law unto Himself 617
35: Imposing His Will 641
Appendix: Are We Being Freudian Yet? 661
Notes 667
Works Cited 709
Acknowledgments 731
Index 733
About the author
Frederick Crews is the author of many books, including the bestselling satire
The Pooh Perplex,
Postmodern Pooh, and
Follies of the Wise, which was a finalist for a National Book Critics Circle award. A professor emeritus of English at the University of California, Berkeley and a longtime contributor to
The New York Review of Books, he is widely regarded as the leading critic of Freud and psychoanalysis.
