Frank J. Sulloway
This monumental intellectual biography of Freud is the 1st serious reassessment of his work since Ernest Jones' classic biography. Drawing upon many new sources, including a detailed study of his private library, Sulloway demonstrates that Freud, in spite of later denials, always remained a "biologist of the mind," that, indeed, his most creative inspirations derived from biology. In a series of detective-like reconstructions he shows how psychoanalysis arose when Freud, influenced by contemporary Darwinian biology & the bizarre researches of his intimate friend Wilhelm Fliess, substituted an evolutionary for a physiological model of mind. This revolutionary reassessment of Freud & psychoanalysis runs directly counter to what both Freud & his followers have propagated--a mythology picturing him as the lonely "psychoanalytic hero" who, by himself & against a universally hostile outside world, invented a totally original psychology thru analyses of his patients & himself. Sulloway not only unmasks the historical distortions behind this legend, but exposes the political functions it's served in psychoanalytic history. Brilliantly written, meticulously researched, this work transforms our understanding of Freud.
Psychology,Psychoanalysis,Biography,Science,Psychology,Philosophy,Nonfiction
Freud, Biologist of the Mind: Beyond the Psychoanalytic Legend