From Publishers Weekly
In a major new work on the father of psychoanalysis, Breger, Professor Emeritus of Psychoanalytic Studies at California Institute of Technology, synthesizes seminal earlier books such as Ernest Jones's four volume Life and Work of Sigmund Freud (1953) and Peter Gay's Freud: A Life for Our Time (1988), and provides a new reading of how Freud himself continually altered public and professional perceptions of himself. Breger is adept at reexamining and reinterpreting existing knowledge about Freud, such as how his entrenched pro-militarist feelings about the First World War manifested in his work; his misinformed and conservative disapproval of birth control; and his complicated view of both male and female homosexuality. In addition, Breger fairly evaluates new criticisms of the man and his work, particularly those of Freudian renegade Jeffrey Masson. Especially astute is Breger's delineation of how Freud's understanding of himself as a Jew, as well as the anti-Semitism of his times, contributed to his theories (although curiously he does not refer to any of Sander Gilman's noted work on this topic). Breger's unique contribution is an analysis of how Freud's own interpretation of his childhood "became the prototype for his understanding everyone, a foundation that he relied on throughout his life." Careful to situate Freud in the political, social and artistic contexts of his time, Breger has produced a provocative, well-written and up-to-date account of the life and career of one of the 20th century's most influential intellectual figures. (Sept.) Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
Psychoanalysis ia a clumsy tool, not the scalpel Freud envisioned. In this masterly biography and cultural history, psychologist and psychoanalyst Breger (emeritus, California Inst. of Technology) explains why. Previous Freud biographers Ernest Jones, Paul Roazen, Ronald Clark, and Peter Gay lack his combined clinical acumen and objectivity. Breger interprets carefully, guiding the reader through an oft-told story that has never been made so human. "Sigi," though his mother's favorite, was emotionally starved as a youngster and could not deal with this pain in his creatively evasive self-analysis. His professional frustrations were not caused by Viennese conservatism but by his own way of thinking, working, and treating people. Breger movingly portrays the Great War, Freud's initial enthusiasm for it, his inability to grasp the nature of real trauma, and the resulting death instinct theory. Essential for all public and academic libraries, this landmark work conveys a new sense of one of the great, flawed men and movements of the last century.DE. James Lieberman, George Washington Univ. Sch. of Medicine, Washington, DC Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
Few figures of the past century are more intriguing than Sigmund Freud. His theories have been both proven and disproven, been considered both fashionable and out of favor, and been used in everything from psychoanalysis to literary theory to architectural philosophy. Breger, founder of the Institute of Contemporary Psychoanalysis, presents a well-researched, new biography of Freud. In it, he deconstructs the myth Freud fabricated of himself, comparing Freud's self-analysis with the actual events of his life. His famous theories, his pioneering role in the field of psychoanalysis, and the obscurity of his childhood are all results of Freud's quest for fame. His greatest work was often revealed through self-analysis: if it was true of Freud, it must be true of everyone. Thus, the universal theories set forth by Freud were "created to explain his own childhood" and became the "prototype for his understanding everyone, a foundation that he relied on throughout his life." This groundbreaking work is more than just plain biography; it is Freudian analysis (literally) at its best. Michael Spinella
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
From Book News, Inc.
A biography (from birth to death) of psychology's most famous figure. Breger (psychoanalytic study, California Institute of Technology) reveals a man of many contradictions, including startling originality in ideas but strict adherence to dogma; total immersion into the minds of patients while maintaining great personal privacy; and deep insights into peoples' lives of but complete lack of recognizing his influence on them. Contains b&w photographs of Freud and important people in his life.Book News, Inc.®, Portland, OR
Review
"Psychoanalysis is a clumsy tool, not the scalpel Freud envisioned. In this masterly biography and cultural history, psychologist and psychoanalyst Breger (emeritus, California Institute of Technology) explains why. Previous Freud biographers Ernest Jones, Paul Roazen, Ronald Clark, and Peter Gay lack his combined clinical acumen and objectivity. Breger interprets carefully, guiding the reader through an oft-told story that has never been made so human. 'Sigi,' though his mother's favorite, was emotionally starved as a youngster and could not deal with this pain in his creatively evasive self-analysis. His professional frustrations were not caused by Viennese conservatism, but by his own way of thinking, working, and treating people. Breger movingly portrays the Great War, Freud's initial enthusiasm for it, his inability to grasp the nature of real trauma, and the resulting death instinct theory. Essential for all public and academic libraries, this landmark work conveys a new sense of one of the great, flawed men and movements of the last century."(Library Journal, Starred Review) "Persuasive... the best part of Breger's book -- his revisiting of the early authoritarian days of psychoanalysis -- is a foray into the past that matters a great deal. An important contribution" (The New York Times Book Review, December 17th, 2000)
"Breger brings out all the contradictions and ends up with a fascinating and well-balanced book." (Focus, February 2001)
"...a perceptive, measured account of Freud's work..." (Irish Times, 9th December 2000)
"Breger's sane and lucid study must henceforth count among the indispensable books on Freud." (Times Literary Supplement, 27th October 2000) "This is an absorbing book..." (Journal of Child Psychology & Psychiatry, Vol.43, No.4 2002)
Review
"Breger brings out all the contradictions and ends up with a fascinating and well-balanced book." (Focus, February 2001)
"...a perceptive, measured account of Freud's work..." (Irish Times, 9th December 2000)
"Breger's sane and lucid study must henceforth count among the indispensable books on Freud." (Times Literary Supplement, 27th October 2000) "This is an absorbing book..." (Journal of Child Psychology & Psychiatry, Vol.43, No.4 2002)
Times Literary Supplement, 27th October 2000
"Breger's sane and lucid study must henceforth count among the indispensable books on Freud."
Irish Times, 9th December 2000
"...a perceptive, measured account of Freud's work..."
Journal of Child Psychology & Psychiatry, Vol.43, No.4 2002
"This is an absorbing book..."
Book Description
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
From the Inside Flap
Sigmund Freud, father of psychoanalysis, plunged into the dark regions of the human psyche—including his own—to reveal the truth about sexuality, neurosis, and the unconscious. Or so the legend has it. In this perceptive biography, Louis Breger presents a striking new portrait of one of the great figures of the twentieth century, showing how Freud systematically obscured the truth about his life to create a heroic image of himself that was a blend of fact and fantasy.
In his youth, Freud’s family lived on the edge of poverty in anti-Semitic Vienna. His mother was a demanding and controlling woman and his father a weak and failed man. Young Sigmund escaped from all these unbearable conditions into the world of books and his imagination, where he sought solace and consolation in fantasies of the ancient world. He was drawn to powerful conquerors—Oedipus, Alexander the Great, Hannibal, Napoléon—and longed for the day when he could achieve fame and power, when he could become, in his own words, a "hero." The boy who had lived in a fantasy world became an impressive prose stylist, capable of presenting his often controversial ideas in compelling ways. He used his formidable skills to shape both his personal legend and the history of the psychoanalytic movement. Out of his self-analysis and work with patients came his seminal contributions: the unconscious, the significance of dreams, the formative influence of early emotional experience, and psychoanalysis as a form of therapy.
But he could see only so much about himself, and his blindness to the pain, fear, and helplessness of his early years led him to create a myth about his childhood—centered on the Oedipus complex—that obscured the sources of his adult anxiety, symptoms, and addictions. From this came the overblown theories, the neglect of trauma and real-life experience, the distorted views of women, and the authoritarian form of treatment, all of which have plagued psychoanalysis since its inception. Breger’s insightful portrait reveals Freud as a man of striking contradictions, someone whose startling originality coexisted with a rigid adherence to dogma, a person who spent his life immersed in the most intimate details of other people’s lives yet remained wrapped up in himself and curiously remote from others, a man of deep insights who was also blind to the effect he had on other people. In demythologizing Freud, Breger penetrates to the "darkness" behind one of the brightest minds of the twentieth century.
Back Cover Copy
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
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.
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