Freud Biologist Of The Mind

An intellectual biography aiming to demonstrate, despite his denials, that Freud was a "biologist of the mind". The author analyzes the political aspects of the complex myth of Freud as "psychoanalytic hero" as it served to consolidate the analytic movement.

Wars against Freud were waged along virtually every front in the 1980s. In Freud and His Critics, Paul Robinson takes on three of Freud's most formidable detractors, mounting a thoughtful, witty, and ultimately devastating critique of the historian of science Frank Sulloway, the psychoanalyst Jeffrey Masson, and the philosopher Adolf Grünbaum. Frank Sulloway contends that Freud took most of his ideas from Darwin and other contemporary thinkers—that he was something of a closet biologist. Jeffrey Masson charges that Freud caved in to peer pressure when he abandoned his early seduction theory (which Masson believes was correct) in favor of the theory of infantile sexuality. Adolf Grünbaum impugns Freud's claim to have grounded his ideas—especially the idea of the unconscious—on solid empirical foundations. Under Robinson's rigorous cross-examination, the evidence of these three accusers proves ambiguous and their arguments biased by underlying assumptions and ideological commitments. Robinson concludes that the anti-Freudian writings of Sulloway, Masson, and Grünbaum reveal more about their authors' prejudices—and about the Zeitgeist of the 1980s—than they do about Freud. Indeed, they fundamentally distort and diminish Freud, pointedly ignoring his remarkable historical achievement—the invention of a new way of thinking about the self that has revolutionized the modern imagination. This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1993.

From the master of Freud debunkers, the book that definitively puts an end to the myth of psychoanalysis and its creator Since 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.

The traditional dating of the origin of psychoanalysis to 1900, when Freud published The Interpretation of Dreams, ignores the massive body of work he produced well before this date. Covering fields as diverse as neurology, physiology, philosophy, and pharmacology, this wealth of unjustly neglected material was to have a profound influence upon the development of psychoanalytic theory and technique. This fascinating study of the hidden roots of psychoanalysis features contributions from an international panel of authorities on Freud's early writings, and highlights the unparalleled originality of his pre-analytic work. Seeking to restore the openness that originally existed between psychoanalysis and the other sciences, these papers consider Freud's outstanding scientific achievements within neurology and his achievements as a psychologist. Freud's early fascination with cocaine and his substantial monograph on the coca plant are reconsidered in the light of research that places the episode in its historical context. The influence of philosophical writings upon Freud's thought is demonstrated careful consideration of the origins of Freudian concepts in the works of Aristotle, Brentano and John Stuart Mill.

Why do people raised in the same families often differ more dramatically in personality than those from different families? What made Charles Darwin, Benjamin Franklin and Voltaire uniquely suited to challenge the conventional wisdom of their times? This pioneering inquiry into the significance of birth order answers both these questions with a conceptional boldness that has made critics compare it with the work of Freud and of Darwin himself. During Frank Sulloway's 20-year-research, he combed through thousands of lives in politics, science and religion, demonstrating that first-born children are more likely to identify with authority whereas their younger siblings are predisposed to rise against it. Family dynamics, Sulloway concludes, is a primary engine of historical change. Elegantly written, masterfully researched, BORN TO REBEL is a grand achievement that has galvanised historians and social scientists and will fascinate anyone who has ever pondered the enigma of human character.