Freud: A life for our times - Hardcover

Gay, Peter

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0460047612 ISBN 13: 9780460047616

Publisher: J.M. Dent, 1988

Synopsis

A Life for Our Time is a biography about Freud written by Peter Gay. This is the original publication from 1988. The chapters of the book starts with Foundations 1856-1905 (A Greed for Knowledge, The Theory in the Making, and Psychoanalysis); then comes Elaborations 1902-1915 (Sketch of an Embattled Founder, Psychoanalytic Politics, Therapy and Technique, and Applications and Implications) and ends with Revisions 1915-1939 (Aggressions, Death Against Life, Flickering Lights on Dark Continents, Human Nature at Work, and To Die in Freedom). The Chicago Tribune wrote, “[This] remarkable biography… briskly traces the story of Freud’s life and education, deftly weaving the familiar narrative with a style that makes it seem fresh and lively.” The ISBN # is 0-393-02517-9. The book contains 810 pages.

About this title

From Publishers Weekly

Gay's engrossing portrait of Freud is unconventional, at times startling. We see how a doting, domineering mother equipped young Sigmund for a life of intrepid investigation. We follow the ambitious medical student's long, sexually starved courtship of Martha Bernays, a romance that, according to Gay, influenced his theories about the sexual roots of mental ailments. Freud continually analyzed his own unresolved conflicts, blaming his fainting spells on unconscious homosexual urges. Though he preached that the psychoanalyst should be detached during therapy sessions, he bent and even broke his own rules, returning fees to patients who fell on hard times and making friends with his favorite analysands. Perhaps no biographer has succeeded as well as Gay in linking Freud's life to his writings and his times. In this magisterial biography by the eminent cultural historian (The Bourgeois Experience, etc.), Freud's greatness and his flaws flow out of the same stubborn, obsessive quest for truth. Photos not seen by PW.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

This simply wonderful book will take its place among the definitive biographies of Freud. The author, an historian and superb writer with psychoanalytical training, has written extensively on Freud and the era in which he worked. While clearly partial to Freud, Gay gives a far more balanced and at times critical account of his life than Ernest Jones's very orthodox The Life & Work of Sigmund Freud and hence will provide a far more valuable refutation of works hostile to Freud. Outstanding features include the in-depth, lucid discussion of Freud's major works and masterful evocation of the epoch that ended in the terror of Nazi-occupied Vienna. Accessible and entertaining as well as comprehensive and technically rigorous; a great addition to the field. Paul Hymowitz, Cornell Medical Ctr., New York
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: J.M. Dent
• Publication date: 1988
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0460047612
• ISBN 13: 9780460047616
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 810