Against Freud

by Dufresne, Todd

• ISBN13: 9780804755474
• ISBN10: 0804755477
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2007-05-02
• Publisher: Stanford Univ Pr

Summary

Everyone agrees that Sigmund Freud has had a profound impact on Western society and intellectual life. But even today few people know much about his life and work beyond the legends that Freud and his adherents created, fostered, and repeated. The result is an enormous cross-disciplinary field characterized by contradiction and confusion. Only the experts could possibly make sense of it allbut not always, since no field is as thoroughly undercut by ideology, acrimony, and bad faith as psychoanalysis. Against Freud collects the frank musings of some of the world's best critics of Freud, providing a convincing and coherent "case against Freud" that is as amusing as it is rigorously presented. Hailing from diverse academic backgroundshistory, philosophy, literary criticism, sociology, psychotherapy, and psychiatrythis diverse group includes renowned international figures such as Edward Shorter, Frank Sulloway, Frederick Crews, and Mikkel Borch-Jacobsen, as well as those who knew Freud and his family. Listen in on the critics and then decide for yourself whether or not "Freud is dead."

Author Biography

Todd Dufresne is Associate Professor and Chair of the Philosophy Department at Lakehead University. He is the author of Tales from the Freudian Crypt: The Death Drive in Text and Context (Stanford, 2000) and Killing Freud.

Table of Contents

Introduction : the revised life and work of Sigmund Freud	p. 1
"The man who was analyzed by Freud" : Joseph Wortis on Freud, Freudians, and social justice	p. 9
An American woman in Freud's Vienna : Esther Menaker on Freudianism and her analysis with Anna Freud	p. 26
Edward Shorter's deflections on medicine, history, and psychoanalysis	p. 35
Psychoanalysis and pseudoscience : Frank J. Sulloway revisits Freud and his legacy	p. 48
Truth, science, and the failures of psychoanalysis : Frederick Crews reveals why he became a Freud skeptic	p. 70
Freud and interpretation : Frank Cioffi and Allen Esterson discuss Freud's legacy	p. 88
Schreber, seduction, and scholarship : Han Israels on idiots, lunatics, and the psychopathology of Freud scholars	p. 113
Suggestion, hypnosis, and the critique of psychoanalysis : Mikkel Borch-Jacobsen's "Return to Delboeuf"	p. 131
Freud, parasites, and the "culture of banality" : Todd Dufresne speaks of psychoanalysis and contemporary theory	p. 145
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